Anxiety

Anxiety isn't necessarily a problem, it is a primitive protective mechanism after all. However when it becomes persistent and interferes with daily life, it's called an anxiety disorder and it can affect about one in 20 people!

Anxiety: It's a feeling of dread or apprehension accompanied by a tightness in the chest and physical symptoms like sweating, trembling and rapid heartbeat. It's often caused by some change in our lives over which we feel we have no control. It might be a new date, an exam or a work performance review... or it could be something more serious like ill health.

Sometimes simply the passage of time helps but for others the anxiety persists and becomes much greater – even overwhelming – and quite out of proportion to the situation. It can make normal, daily activities difficult or impossible. This is when anxiety becomes a disorder.

One of the intriguing aspects of the problem is that there can be large variations in individuals' responses to stressful events. Some people survive a traumatic event without getting any anxiety, while others are almost incapacitated by seemingly trivial events. There's no one cause, however researchers have identified the following risk factors -

Genetic predisposition
Anxiety disorders tend to run in families

Personal characteristics
Researchers believe that people who have low self-esteem and poor coping skills may be prone to anxiety disorders

Biochemistry
It's theorised that some people who are prone to anxiety may have too many or too few neurotransmitters in the brain, however this is poorly understood.

There are several different manifestations of anxiety disorders including
* Generalised Anxiety Disorder - fears and apprehension about minor things;
* Phobias - a fear of specific situations eg heights, closed spaces, water, dogs, snakes or spiders;
* Agoraphobia - This is a fear of public places, especially crowds;
* OCD - constant unwanted thoughts 'controlled' by performing elaborate rituals like washing hands or checking things over and over;
* PTSD - frightening thoughts and memories following a traumatic event.

Treatment

Many people consider anxiety disorders are not 'real' health problems or that they are best dealt with by 'soldiering on'. Only about a third of people with anxiety disorders seek treatment. Fortunately, there are a range of effective treatments available. Some work well for some types of anxiety disorders and not for others.

Sometimes more than one therapy is needed. The treatment is most successful if it's tailored to the individual and, for the majority of anxiety disorders, psychological techniques offer the most successful forms of treatment.

The main types of psychological treatment are relaxation techniques, structured problem solving, graded exposure, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and EMDR.

Drugs are not as effective as psychological treatments. They do reduce anxiety, but only while being taken - when the medication is stopped, the symptoms return - and drugs can impair performance and cause dependence.

What help? Of course you can have treatment as a private patient. However currently in Australia psychological services can attract a partial rebate from Medicare. You will need a referral from your GP for this - usually for five treatments followed by a review with your GP.

Want more information? http://www.mentalhealth.asn.au/ada/

Resource: ABC Health & Wellbeing; Published 07/06/2005, Author Peter Lavelle
http://www.abc.net.au/health/library/stories/2005/06/07/1828950.htm