Anxiety

The individual suffering anxiety or a panic attack is feeling very afraid. Anxiety and panic attacks are often based on irrational fears. At times anxiety can be the result of a trauma or be a part of another type of mental disorder. The symptoms may include worry and apprehension, rapid breathing, increased heart rate, dizziness, nausea, headache, sweating, dry mouth, tight throat or pain in various sets of muscles.

Psychologically, the anxiety is often the result of a perception that there are challenges that an individual does not think they have the ability to overcome. The individual will often overlook and underestimate his/her abilities and distort the severity and reality of the threat. When individuals are experiencing severe anxiety, they become acutely aware of very unpleasant physical and emotional symptoms. Often people with anxiety begin to dread and fear the symptoms and develop avoidance behaviors to keep them from re-experiencing the anxiety.

An effective treatment program for coping with anxiety is cognitive-behavior psychotherapy. Cognitive-behavior psychotherapy for anxiety often consists of learning relaxation techniques and coping strategies for stressful situations. It also will focus on identifying the cognitive distortions often present in people with anxiety. Once the cognitive distortions are identified, attempts are made to correct the distortion in thinking.