Chronic Anxiety

What is Generalized Anxiety Disorder?

It can develop at any age. In adults, the cause of worry may vary as per their lifestyle but in children and adolescents, the worry often relates mainly towards performing in school or sports. Approximately five percent of the total American population suffers from this disorder in which 55 to 60 percent of those diagnosed are females. Though there are no specific phobias to list with this type of disorder, it is sustained with some basic fears such as fear of failure, rejection and abandonment, diseases and death and so on.

In this type of anxiety disorder, your worry focuses on more than one strenuous circumstance of life that might include relationships, finances, or health. In this, you simply experience long lasting anxiety and worry without the perplex features experienced in other anxiety disorders.

People diagnosed with this type of disorder have large number of worries and tend to spend the majority of their time worrying about things which are actually of less concern. Owing to this, they are also not able to restrain their worry. Furthermore, the intensity and frequency of worry is also larger than is the actual case of feared events.

When diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, its causes and symptoms obstruct your social, occupational and other areas of life and make you feel distressed. When your doctor tells you that you are suffering from generalized anxiety disorder then he/she in fact precludes your possibility of being affected by it through medical causes such as thyroid problems, hyperventilation, anxiety caused due to drugs.

A generalized anxiety disorder is usually accompanied by a feeling of depression. A medical professional can easily make out which disorder is primary and secondary, but not in all cases is it easy to make out which was the first one to strike.

The fundamental causes of generalized anxiety disorder remain unknown but it can primarily happen due to a combination of heredity, predisposing childhood experiences such as parental abandonment and rejection, modeling behavior of worry from parents, excessive parental expectations and so on. Any stressful situations that are driven out of increased demands for performance, physical illness, a huge marital conflict or any other situation that might heighten the perception of danger and threat can exasperate chronic anxiety.

The symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder include restlessness, fatigue, and difficulty in concentrating, insomnia, irritability and others. If any three of these symptoms are present for a long period not necessarily for over three months then you are suffering from generalized anxiety disorder.

However, you really don’t need to worry if you have or are suffering from chronic anxiety, this is because treatment of generalized anxiety disorder exists and can help you overcome it. These include, relaxation training, worry exposure, cognitive therapy, problem solving, medication, distraction, mindfulness practices and personality changes.

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