A Comprehensive, Holistic Guide
to the Conventional Medical
and Self-Care Treatments for Anxiety Disorders
In a world that values excess, the pressure to succeed never ends. As a result of our fast-paced and high-stakes society, anxiety can take over our lives.
For approximately 20 million American adults a year, anxiety symptoms such as dizziness, stammering, heart palpitations, trembling, and shaking can be extremely debilitating. Unlike other books on anxiety, this book offers a holistic program that includes not only conventional psychiatric and psychological treatments, but also provides nutrition, fitness, environmental, herbal, stress reduction/healing, and relationship self-care approaches.
Living Well with Anxiety contains helpful advice for a wide range of anxiety disorders: social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, and various phobias. With a comprehensive resource section that contains relevant websites and e-mail addresses, audiocassettes and CDs for relaxation, and descriptions of related books, this book provides vital help for anyone experiencing anxiety.
Anxiety is frequently confused with other feelings, especially fear. You may call anxiety "nerves" or "nervousness," but that may be the only information you have about the condition.
What Is Anxiety?
The word anxiety has been used since the 1500s and comes from the Latin word anxius, which means worry of an unknown event. Worry then leads to a state of apprehension and uncertainty, which results in both physical and psychological effects.
Although you may not know the difference between anxiety and fear, the two terms refer to entirely different feelings. Fear is usually directed at an external danger. The event you fear is identifiable. You may fear stepping off a curb when a car is speeding by at sixty miles an hour, or when a neighbor's dog suddenly jumps out at you.
Anxiety has no such easily recognizable source and is often called an unexplained discomfort. You may have a sense of danger when experiencing anxiety, but the feeling is vague, and if asked, you may say your feeling is related to "something bad happening," or "losing control."
Anxiety has physical, emotional, mental, and even spiritual effects. Physical effects include shortness of breath, heart palpitations, trembling or shaking, sweating, choking, nausea or abdominal distress, hot flashes or chills, dizziness or unsteadiness. Because anxiety is so uncomfortable, you may convert your anxiety into anger or other feelings. Emotional effects include feelings such as worry, anger, panic, and terror. Mental effects include thinking you're going to die, or that you're going crazy or are out of control. Spiritual effects include alienation and feeling detached and out of touch with yourself and others.
What Causes Anxiety?
Everyone experiences anxiety. It is what makes us more human than otherwise, to paraphrase Dr. Harry Stack Sullivan. This psychoanalyst created the Theory of Interpersonal Relations and taught that much mental suffering is a result of communication that is interfered with by anxiety. According to Sullivan, anxiety is a normal reaction to unmet needs and other stresses, such as disapproval (first from parents and then from oneself or others). Anxiety can also be viewed as a protective mechanism that keeps you safe from situations believed to be threatening.
Whether or not anxiety develops into a chronic condition that interferes with your life depends on your genes, your early family experiences, your ongoing stress (which can affect brain activity), medical conditions, toxins you encounter, and drugs and stimulants you take. Let's examine these in a little more detail.
1. Your genes can contribute to anxiety conditions if you are born a volatile, excitable, reactive type of person who is easily set off by a threat. In this case, you may be especially prone to panic attacks, which are really just your body overreacting by pouring adrenaline out of your adrenal glands and into your bloodstream. This leads to a racing heart, shallow breathing, profuse sweating, trembling and shaking, and cold hands and feet as your body readies itself to either fight or flee. Since there is no real threat, you are left with the chemical reactions flooding your body. Luckily, the adrenaline released during panic tends to be reabsorbed by the liver and kidneys within a few minutes, and the attack subsides.
2. Childhood experiences can contribute to anxiety conditions if you had parents who were overly cautious or critical, if you were neglected, rejected, abandoned, incurred physical or sexual abuse, grew up in a family where one or both parents were alcoholic, or had parents who suppressed your expression of feelings and self-assertiveness.
“Anyone who suffers from anxiety should read this consise, helpful, easy-to-follow guide. It can change your life!”
