How to help a person with Generalized Anxiety Disorder?

Several tips on how to help someone with GAD: a friend, a family member, a partner, etc.

Anxiety is a natural feeling in human beings, and there is nothing strange about feeling it in certain situations in our lives. Uncomfortable moments of stress or frustration are usually also accompanied by the feeling of anxiety. However, there are extreme cases in which anxiety damages our quality of life too much.

In this article we will examine how to help a person with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (friends, family, partner, spouse, family members). (friends, relatives, the couple, etc.) by means of a list of practical advice that we can apply in our daily life, in addition we give a review to the concept of this disorder.

What is GAD?

To understand how to help a person with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), it is best to understand exactly what this psychological disorder is. it is best to understand exactly what this psychological disorder is all about..

In short, it is a persistent state of anxiety caused by anxiety, which affects the person constantly (for several months) and intensely, and usually has no logical reasons.

People with this pathology manifest a pattern of accelerated and catastrophic, pessimistic and pessimistic thinking.. This means that they imagine that things will always go wrong, even before they have started to do them. It is precisely this negative way of always anticipating situations that generates constant discomfort, which affects the subject in several areas of their daily life (personal, family, work).

When the subject is frequently anxious, and also with a high degree of intensity, we may have this disorder. However, the diagnosis can only be made by mental health professionals, the diagnosis can only be made by mental health professionals..

The causes of this pathology may be Biological (brain chemistry) or environmental (social factors), although both usually play an important role. Ideally, both neurological and psychological evaluations should be performed to clearly establish the origin of the anxiety.

Symptoms of this disorder

The symptoms of this disorder vary according to the causes and the stage of development in which the person is; it is not the same to present generalized anxiety in adolescence than in adulthood.

During the young stages of development, the symptomatology can become more acute. Adults usually manage to self-regulate themselves. However, it is advisable to seek professional help no matter what age the person is, it is advisable to seek professional help regardless of the person's age..

Let us see in more detail what are some of these symptoms, the most common ones:

• Constant anguish or worry for trivial reasons, sometimes for no apparent reason.
• Excessive thinking about any circumstance, always leading to a negative conclusion.
• Having the impression that one is constantly under threat, even when there is no evidence of it.
• Difficulties in facing difficult or uncomfortable situations.
• Lack of self-confidence, conflicts when making decisions.
• Inability to abandon a distressing thought.
• Difficulties to relax, due to a constant feeling of being on the edge of events.
• Problems in maintaining concentration due to intrusive thoughts.

How to help someone with Generalized Anxiety Disorder?

Now we will look at some of the ways in which we can provide help and support to people with Generalized Anxiety Disorder..

1. Show consistent support

It is important that the support we give to people with this disorder is constant. They are anxious subjects, and intermittent support would affect them even more in terms of the negative thoughts that they present..

The ideal is to make a structured plan of support, where we establish times and dates in which we can assist the subject, so that we avoid breaking an appointment or commitment we have made with this person.

2. Find out about the disorder

The more information we have regarding this disorder, the clearer we will have the picture to provide support to people who need it. If we are able to understand why they behave the way they do, we can be more empathetic and less critical of their behavior, we can be more empathetic and less critical of their behavior..

3. Accompany them during therapy

Therapy is an indispensable factor in order for this disorder to be managed correctly.. It is important that we make the person understand that he/she requires treatment by a specialist. The fact that we accompany the subject to therapy will generate a sense of security that will make it easier not to abandon the therapy, at least at the beginning.

4. Unburden yourself with someone else

Providing help to people with a disorder is often exhausting for those who take the trouble to do it. It is important that those who support others in this way also take time for themselves and have someone with whom they can discuss their experiences and express how they feel.

5. Create an entertaining environment

Subjects with Generalized Anxiety Disorder live under a constant feeling of distress. One way to alleviate this discomfort is to generate an environment where worries are dissipated and there is an opportunity to laugh at everyday things..

Taking problems less seriously helps to dopt a more neutral position that is less prone to catastrophic thoughts. In this way, we show that person that not everything is as bad as he or she thinks.

6. Encourages their social relationships

It is quite common for people with Generalized Anxiety Disorder to feel insecure when relating to others, for fear that things will not go well, and this causes them to limit or completely deprive themselves of initiating social ties with others.

It is important to promote sociability in themThis shows that interpersonal relationships, however complicated they may seem, are necessary and can greatly help to improve the quality of life. Of course, we should not force or adopt an antagonistic attitude, because that will generate more anxiety; we only have to facilitate dialogues and social interactions to occur, giving the opportunity to desocialize, with the person with GAD having the last word.

7. Help him/her to get organized

A factor that helps greatly to reduce anxiety levels in people is to have some degree of control over their activities. having some degree of control over their activities. Giving people with generalized anxiety the tools they need to be organized is very helpful for them.

For example, you can help them when designing their schedule by encouraging them to print it out and hang it in places in their home that they will see frequently, and by making their bedtime the same. Maintaining consistency in the times of the day that you will dedicate to sleep will help mitigate anxiety problems, and in addition, the time tables make it possible to have clear the sequence of actions to be performed at each moment, something that helps to focus and to get rid of psychological rumination.

Bibliographical references:

• Craske, M.G.; Stein, M.B. (2016). Anxiety. Lancet, 388(10063): pp. 3048 - 3059.
• DeMartini, J.; Patel, G.; Fancher, T.L.. (2019). Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Annals of Internal Medicine. 170(7): ITC49 - ITC64.
• Mochcovitch, M. (2014). A systematic review of fMRI studies in generalized anxiety disorder: Evaluating its neural and cognitive basis. Journal of affective disorders, 167, pp. 336 - 342.
• Schacter, D. L.; Gilbert, D. T.; Wegner, D. M. (2011). Generalized Anxiety Disorders. Psychology. New York: Worth, Incorporated. pp. 559 - 560. Torpy, J.M.; Burke, A.E.; Golub, R.M. (2011). Generalized Anxiety Disorder. JAMA, 305(5): p. 522.
• Solomon, C. (2015): Generalized Anxiety Disorder. The New England Journal of Medicine, 373(21), pp. 2059 - 2068.