Clinical Trial Finder Team
Keywords: Anxiety Disorders, Anxiety Symptoms, Treatments for Anxiety
Quick Links:
- What is Anxiety?
- Types of Anxiety
- Symptoms of Anxiety
- Causes of Anxiety
- Risk Factors for Anxiety
- Treatments for Anxiety
- When to see a doctor
- Prevention of Anxiety
- MedBuzz Recent Clinical Trial Findings
What is Anxiety?
Anxiety is a normal and very common response to stress. It is your body’s natural reaction to a stressor, alerting you of potential danger ahead making it an important emotional response. It’s commonly characterised by a feeling of apprehension and this feeling usually passes once the stressful event has passed, or the stressor is removed. Experiencing occasional anxiety isn’t any reason to worry.
Anxiety disorders are very different. If your anxiety doesn’t go away, is interfering with your life, or comes on with no obvious stressor, it may be the sign of an anxiety disorder. These are a group of mental illnesses that can cause consistent and overwhelming fear, apprehension and worry for months or years.
It is one of the most common mental health conditions in the world, with over 275 million suffering from it globally.
Types of Anxiety
There are several types of anxiety disorders, including:
- Generalised anxiety disorder: Causing a feeling of excessive worry and tension with minimal or no stressors
- Illness anxiety disorder (previously called hypochondria): Where you have constant anxiety about your health
- Panic disorder: Where you’re experiencing multiple and recurring panic attacks. Those who experience panic attacks might feel an onset of physical reactions such as difficulty breathing, chest pain, excessive sweating and blurry vision.
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder: Causing recurring irrational and uncontrollable thoughts that lead you to perform specific repetitive behaviors
- Phobias: Such as social phobias (fear of being judged by people) or agoraphobia (fear of spaces) are anxiety disorders.
- Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD: Following a traumatic event or period in your life, you may experience anxiety.
- Separation anxiety disorder: Related to a fear of being away from home or loved ones
- Selective mutism: A type of social anxiety in young kinds who don’t speak in public or at school but speak normally at home or with their family.
- Medication-induced anxiety disorder: Resulting from the overuse, or the withdrawal from certain medications or drugs.
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Symptoms of Anxiety
Anxiety is a very individual feeling and might range from a sense or trepidation or nervousness to a racing heart and sweating. People might experience heightened anxiety symptoms during nightmares, panic attacks or ‘flashbacks’ to stressful times.
General anxiety symptoms might include:
- Increased heart rate
- Fast breathing
- Difficulty concentrating
- Trouble falling asleep
Anxiety attacks are a gradual build-up of these symptoms until they reach a boiling point. Symptoms of an anxiety attack are different for everyone, but common symptoms include:
- Shortness of breath
- An emotional response such as crying
- A feeling of extreme worry, fear and apprehension
- Difficulty focusing
- Feeling dizzy or faint
- Sweating, chills or hot flashes
- Sweating
- Dry mouth
- Pins and needles in the legs or arms
Some panic attacks are so intense it can feel like a heart attack.
Causes of Anxiety
Researchers aren’t exactly sure what brings on anxiety, or why certain people develop anxiety disorders where other’s don’ but we know that both environmental and genetic factors can play a role. These include:
- Genetics: Your genetics and predisposition from a family history of anxiety disorder can play a role in developing anxiety
- Chemical makeup of the brain: Research has found that some anxiety disorders could be the result of an imbalance of chemicals in the brain
- Stress: Anxiety disorders can be the result of a stressful or distressing event such as the loss of a loved one, or a breakup, or longer-term stressors such as abusive relationships
- Alcohol and drug overuse: Its common to see anxiety disorders with alcohol and substance abuse, as both the cause and a detrimental coping mechanism for some
- Some illnesses: Anxiety can be a symptom of a serious underlying problem like a heart, lung or thyroid condition as they commonly induce anxiety symptoms.
Risk Factors for Anxiety
Those who might be at higher risk of developing anxiety disorders include:
- Genetics or family history: Having family members with anxiety disorders may increase your risk
- Childhood trauma: Abuse such as sexual, emotional or physical abuse, or living through a traumatic event is linked to some anxiety disorders later in life.
- Chronic illness: Suffering or having loved ones suffer from a chronic or debilitating illness can cause anxiety in some people
- Low-self esteem: Poor self-image is associated with types of anxiety
- Alcohol abuse: Excessive alcohol consumption can increase your chances of developing an anxiety disorder
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Treatments for Anxiety Disorders
The treatment of anxiety can be as simple as lifestyle changes, or in more serious cases medication might be prescribed. It’s important to speak with your doctor about your diagnosis and understand what you can do to treat your condition. There are a few types of treatment for anxiety:
- Psychological treatments
- Medical treatments
- Anxiety management strategies
- Others
These treatments are often used in combination with each other.
Psychological treatments
These can include meeting with a therapist face-to-face, speaking with them about your feelings, and working with them on building strategies to combat your anxiety.
Medical treatments
The medical treatments used for anxiety disorders, when psychological treatments are unsuccessful are typically antidepressants and sedatives. They’re used to support healthy chemical balance in the brain and treat symptoms of anxiety disorders
Anxiety management strategies
Management strategies for your anxiety disorder can range from solutions discovered during psychological treatments to lifestyle and environmental changes. The power of taking care of your body can be instrumental to overcoming or managing your anxiety disorder. Some of these include:
- Getting enough quality sleep: Adults should be getting 7-9 hours of sleep a night and aiming to sleep and wake at similar times to encourage proper circadian rhythm.
- Meditation: Meditating has shown in multiple studies to be helpful in reducing stress, a common symptom of anxiety disorders
- Maintaining daily activity: Adults should be aiming to get at least 30 minutes of exercise per day. Proper exercise has shown to improve moods, balance chemicals in the brain and aid to physical issues that could be causing you stress
- Eating a healthy diet: Maintaining a healthy diet low in simple sugars and high in healthy protein, fats and complex carbohydrates can help your body in reducing symptoms of anxiety disorders
- Avoid excessive alcohol and drugs: As they often come hand-in-hand, those with anxiety issues should avoid alcohol and drugs.
Others
Some studies have shown that specific foods can benefit your brain in balancing chemicals and helping it function well. These foods include:
- Chamomile and green tea
- Dark chocolate
- Salmon
- Turmeric
- Natural yogurt
These foods aren’t proven to assist in the management of anxiety as more research is needed, but initial studies have shown some promising results.
When to see a doctor
Although there isn’t one single test that can show whether or not someone has an anxiety disorder, there are ways to diagnose it. It will involve a combination of physical examinations, mental health evaluations and psychological investigations which should be done by either your GP and/or a mix of certified specialists.
If you’re experiencing anxiety-related symptoms without immediate or obvious stressors, for long periods of time, or these symptoms are getting worse, it is worth speaking to your GP about your options. Doctors might also rule out other illnesses by performing blood or urine tests.
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Prevention of Anxiety Disorders
There is no way to ensure you can fully prevent yourself from developing, or relapsing with, an anxiety disorder, but there are a number of environmental and lifestyle factors that you can change or do in order to maintain a healthy brain. These are a combination of a healthy exercise routine, a well-rounded and nutritious diet, a good support system of friends and family, meditative exercises and limiting the use of alcohol and drugs.
MedBuzz Recent Clinical Trial Findings
We do the research so you can be better informed!
Anxiety disorders are being actively researched, not only in otherwise healthy patients but in those that have developed an anxiety disorder as a result of other medical conditions. The reports below show promising findings in men, women, teens and adults battling with anxiety.
- Kava: A study has found that a medicinal south pacific plant could not only be an alternative to common antidepressant pharmaceutical treatments for anxiety but could perform better. In an eight week study with 75 patients, those who took Kava compared to the placebo group showed a significant reduction in anxiety at the study’s end.
- Regular exercise: Although exercise is already assumed to have an impact on symptoms of anxiety disorders, researchers have analysed a number of studies involving a total of nearly 3,000 patients with a variety of medical conditions, and found that patients who exercised regularly had a 20% reduction in anxiety symptoms compared to those who did not exercise.
- Talk therapy for social anxiety: Researchers have found that talk therapy is not only more successful in reducing symptoms of social anxiety than antidepressants but have longer-lasting effects as well. During an analysis of over 101 clinical trials involving over 13,000 patients with severe or longstanding social anxiety, ~9000 received medication or placebo, and ~4000 received psychological intervention. Those who received psychological intervention, more specifically cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), performed better than those who took medication. Other studies have confirmed this link between CBT and combatting anxiety disorders.
- Music therapy: In a study on cancer patients, researchers found music therapy and time with a music therapist improved anxiety in most patients.
Sources:
WebMD.com
HealthLine.com
BeyondBlue.org
HealthDirect.gov.au
BlackDogInsitiute.org
ABC.net
