Anxiety disorder paper

Anxiety disorder paper

Abstract

Anxiety refers to a physical and emotional response to an unclear, uncertain or an event that is uncontrollable. Someone may have a vague feeling that something dangerous is going to take place or intellect of fate.  In most instances, worry majorly focuses on life events. Anxiety disorder has the following characteristics;

–    A feeling of being a perfectionist

–    Trying to get other people impressed

–    Feeling inadequate frequently

–    Using alcohol to reduce the effect

–    Feeling afraid without a reason

–    Feeling unworthy of the love of God

There are different types of anxiety disorders that are known today by the scientists. They include the following:

1. Phobias
2. Panic attacks
3. Post-Traumatic stress disorder
4. Panic disorder
5. Generalized anxiety disorder

Introduction

There are many public anxiety disorders. These disorders are most prevalent of all mental disorders. Cultural factors, ethnic and racial factors strongly affect these disorders by part. In general, there are more than two hundred identified cases of mental disorders. Most people think that the circumstances of mental disorders are almost rare (Richey, 2010). However, that is not the case. Research shows that about fifty-four million Americans suffer from mental disorders every year. It is difficult for most families to understand the behavior of their loved ones who have the said disorder. Such instances can raise a vulnerable feeling to the judgments and the options of others.

A series of events or a particular stressing situation may result in mental illness. Mental disorders are also psychological, emotional and physical like other diseases such as diabetes, heart diseases, and cancer. Some of the causes of mental illness include the following:

–    Genetic factors

–    Environmental stress

–    Biochemical imbalances or even a combination of all of the above

This paper is going to investigate all the facts about mental disorders, for this research, anxiety disorders are emphasized. Some of the questions that needed to be answered are: What is anxiety disorder? What are the causes of this anxiety disorder? What age bracket does it affect mostly? How is it cures and what are the preventive measures taken against it? This pare carries out a research and in the end, suggest the best answers for this questions.

Historical

Anxiety disorder is recognized today as the most common class of mental health disorders as well as the most treatable. Therefore it is far much easier for us to forget the agenda of the phobia meeting which was held in 1978 in the New York City at the White Plains. Initially, anxiety disorder had not been identified by the scientists. Majority of these anxieties were termed as phobias (Asnaani, 2012). There were phobia meetings which were organized in which patients together with the clinicians attended to promote national awareness and treatment of phobias. The new therapies known as exposure therapies are working.

The Phobia Society of America was founded in 1980 by a small research group. The founders were able to imagine what influence unscrambling the mysteries of anxiety would have regarding investigative follow-up and future action alternatives. The ability of the communication technologies to provide information to the clinicians and patients was dawn. Such information could be accessed instantly at any point and time around the globe. Several changes took place as the researchers identified channels amid an abnormal flow of the blood in the brain and the panic attacks.

It was learned the anxiety disorders are coupled with health and pervasive social outcomes. This led to the discovery of various tested therapies as well as medications meant for the treatment of anxiety. Anxiety Disorders Association of America became one of the first mental health corporations and was able to advocate, provide clinical information education and disseminated the science behind the anxiety disorder. Its name was changed again to Anxiety and Depression Association of America in the year 2012. The nature of the patients is reflected by this name and also reflects and acknowledges the realities clinical practices.

1. Cause of the Illness

Anxiety disorder has a wide range of causative agents that have been identified and scientifically proven. The reasons are listed below:

• Abuse of alcohol and other drugs – Excessive intake of alcoholic beverages and abuse of drugs result in anxiety disorder. Due to hallucination, a victim of drug abuse feels isolated and hence the anxiety.
• Lack of meaning and purpose in someone’s life – Some people don’t get to understand the real meaning of life. According to them, life is full of distress and frustrations. These feelings combined will develop the disorder of anxiety.
• The way one perceives herself or himself in their thoughts – individuals may feel low self-esteem due to the life situations. The situations usually are lack of food, money or even favor thereby making an individual feel underrated.
• Your beliefs and attitude about yourself God and the world – Different people have different perspectives about, the world God and themselves. Some people think that God does not exist due to their life challenges and frustrations. They have a feeling that the world is not fair to them and as a result, anxiety develops.
• Genetic makeup – this is based on imbalances of chemicals in someone’s brain. These chemicals are contained in a genetic heredity material known as DNA. When the parent develops anxiety characteristics, these characteristics are then passed on from the parent to the offspring at birth.
• Cumulative stress – stress may accumulate due to reasons to do with regular accidents in a family, weddings, births, next moves or even financial constraints.
• Early life trauma of abuse, neglect or separation – in other instances, some children may be neglected or separated from their families. This arouses the feeling of anxiety when they experience challenges in life. These challenges may include struggling to meet their needs and get food.
• Family background – this commonly occurs in families that are the perfectionist.

Treatment

Treatment of anxiety disorder is tied to a specific patient. These treatments may be in one or more of the following forms:

1. Psychopharmacology
2. Individual Psychotherapy
3. Group therapy
4. Systematic Desensitization hypnosis
5. Imagery
6. Relaxation Exercises
7. Biofeedback

The most effective treatment method of anxiety treatment is psychotherapy and drug treatment. However, there is a rare complete systematic relief. The anti-anxiety drugs such as Benzodiazepine can relieve anxiety. However, these drugs should only be prescribed for a period not exceeding six weeks to avoid possible abuse (Kessler RC, 2012). Buspirone results in less sedation and less danger of psychological and physical dependence as compared to benzodiazepine. However, several weeks are taken for its effectiveness. Through psychotherapy, a patient can recognize and deal with the possible causes of anxiety, expect their reactions and prepare for productive reply measures to carp anxiety. The patient may learn relaxation techniques such as progressive muscle relaxation, visualization, focused relaxation, and deep breathing. The importance of this therapy is that anxiety is dealt with entirely and that; there are no possible cases of side effects associated with it.

Prevention

Anxiety is the state of experiencing a powerful feeling of fear of real or imagined threat affecting psychological, physical or emotional experiences. One way of preventing anxiety disorder is by relaxing your body. When the body is relaxed stress hormones are used up and expelled out of the body faster, therefore, it brings an end to the feelings of an active stress response. A relaxed body does away with muscle tension which is caused by the stress response.

Secondly, keeping you busy (Hofmann, 2010). This helps to avoid anxious thinking which is a state of believing that something terrible is about to happen. One hold himself or herself working by practices such as calling a friend, reading a storybook, playing a game or watching a video. Anything which distracts our mind from the sensation of active stress response assists in ending anxiety disorder.

You need to stop scaring yourself. Fear is the most common cause of anxiety attack, therefore; controlling yourself through positive thinking will conquer the fear hence preventing the disorder. When you do away with fear, then you avoid the most common causes of anxiety.

Another natural way of preventing anxiety disorder is by taking a deep breath. As you take a deep breath, your body will calm down which ends the anxiety attack.

Calming you down is another measure of prevention.  When you calm yourself down, the stress response in the body ends. This happens when the body uses up stress hormones and expels the remaining ones.

Another way of preventing anxiety disorder is by understanding what anxiety attacks are, their causes and how to respond to them. This stops the fear of being attacked by these disorders.

Having a positive attitude towards any anxiety disorder is the best way of controlling the anxiety disorder. This comes about when one realizes that no matter how active the disease is, it will come to an end. This makes one remain calm which also stops the stress response.

Cross-Cultural

It is difficult to establish a direct comparison of prevalence amid varied cultures due to language differences, instruments of assessment sociodemographic, geographical and political context. A comparison between cultural groups within the similar multicultural state would lead to the derivation of a more significant approximation of the disparity in prevalence rates. Taking the United as States population, for example, oversampling of Hispanic Americans are three thousand six hundred and fifteen, Asian Americans are one thousand six hundred and twenty-eight, African Americans are four thousand five hundred and ninety-eight. From the above results, it is clear that the four major anxiety disorders are symptoms are consistently endorsed by Asian Americans. The white Americans always support symptoms of social anxiety disorder. African Americans met criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder frequently as opposed to the subgroup of Asian Americans and Hispanic Americans.

1. Biblical Worldview

In biblical context the view of the Christians is different. According to the Bible, the causes of anxiety are the family feuds and a feeling of low self-esteem in oneself (Hinton, 2012). The Bible, however, provides alternative solutions to these problems. In Philippians chapter 4:6 and 7, the Bible says “Be careful of nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known by God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” The Bible puts it clear that in times of controversies, sorrows, and anxiety, turn to God for there is nothing that is impossible with him. Drawing conclusions from the two verses of Philippians chapter 4, sometimes need not to rely on medical doctors for they can get healed by God. The Lord says that if we let our problems, troubles and anxieties be known unto him. If we further read the Bible, we witness a lot of people being healed. This healing gives patients hope that one day, they will also receive healing.

This is emphasized in the book of Luke chapter 1:37 which says that “For with God nothing will be impossible.” In the Biblical perspective, the patients should lean on God’s grace with is sufficient to receive healing miraculously from heaven. To receive this healing, one must have a strong faith in Christ Jesus and pray without ceasing. While he was on earth, Jesus healed several people. In Matthew 8:16-17, many demon-possessed people were brought to Jesus’ attention that healed them with a simple command thus fulfilling the word of the Lord through prophet Isaiah who said, “He took our sicknesses and removed our diseases” in Verses 17.

Conclusion

Anxiety disorder has become the world’s most common disorder. Several people have suffered it in one way or another without knowing its cause. In these pare, the characteristics of this disorder are discussed and the viable methods of treatment.  To have a potential of dealing with anxiety ultimately, we need to accept them and leave the worries in our lives. If a loved one develops such characteristics, then we need to do anything that is possible to save their situations. It is therefore a mutual responsibility of the patient and the member of the family to work hand in hand with the patient to help control their situation.

The victims should be able to handle unusual behavior, establish a support network, seek counseling from experts, and taking time out. Besides, the patients need to eat well and take necessary breaks from their routine or organize a vocation. They need to participate in a particular hobby and make time for it. In short, to do things that make them feel relaxed.

The patients also need to rest their hope on the hands of the Lord, for the Bible promises that if you let your problems be known unto the lord, healing will be realized. They need to first accept their condition then look for the best ways o treatment. The message of the Lord is seen being though his prophet, Isaiah, is fulfilled by Jesus during his healing ministries while he was on earth. Christians believe that Jesus was sent by his father, God to raise the humble, restore sights for blind, and bring healing in general.

Besides the healing from God, patients also need to eat well. Balanced diets are required for them and also keep a stock of the subsequent meal times. This will help them to ease anxiety since they will have a feeling that they have enough and scarcity will not be a problem unto them. As a result, they are in a position to control their emotional and psychological feelings and thus control their anxiety. The patients however have their own hobby which they enjoy doing it. If someone for example loves playing badminton, he or she should spent much time encaging on it therefore the become active and will not be affected by anxiety.

References

1. Kessler RC, Petukhova M, Sampson NA, Zaslavsky AM, Wittchen HU. Twelve-month and lifetime prevalence and lifetime morbid risk of anxiety and mood disorders in the United States. Int J Methods Psychiatr Res. 2012;21:169–174. [PMC free article][PubMed]
2. Hinton DE. Multicultural challenges in the delivery of anxiety treatment. Depress Anxiety. 2012;29:1–3.[PubMed] Reviews how the culturally specific experiencing distress, particularly anxiety-type distress, must be understood to design effective treatments for diverse populations.
3. Hofmann SG, Asnaani A, Hinton DE. Cultural aspects of social anxiety and social anxiety disorder. Depress Anxiety. 2010;27:1117–1127. [PubMed]Reviews the factors that contribute to the differences in social anxiety different cultures, including individualism/collectivism, the perception of social norms, self-construal, gender roles, and gender role identification.
4. Asnaani A, Richey JA, Dimaite R, Hinton DE, Hofmann SG. A cross-ethnic comparison of lifetime prevalence rates of anxiety disorders. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. 2010;198:551–555. [PubMed] Reports the results of a large epidemiological study comparing White Americans, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans in the prevalence rates of anxiety disorders.
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