Keys to Understanding Anxiety Disorders

A summary about the main characteristics of Anxiety Disorders.

Anxiety is a normal and adaptive reaction that is experienced in situations where the situations in which the individual feels threatened or in danger (real or imagined). (real or imagined). It can be understood as a defense mechanism that alerts the person that there is imminent danger, and prepares the individual physically and psychologically to face or flee from the threat. Thus, a certain degree of anxiety is even desirable for the normal management of day-to-day demands. Only when the intensity is excessive and disproportionate to the threat does it become pathological.

In Anxiety Disorders there is usually no real triggering stimulus.Rather, it is the individual's own mind that unconsciously evokes a thought or image that is threatening, causing the onset of the symptomatic picture of anxiety.

In addition, it is frequent to find testimonies of patients who affirm that these thoughts are given normally after a stressful event, just when the person was relaxed. Why does this happen?

What thoughts are related to Anxiety Disorders?

When the person is immersed in a situation that requires all his attention, most of the fears remain in the background, because the person hardly has time to think about anything. It is a question of priorities. However, when the stressful situation has passed and the person remains calm, it is normal that the thoughts that have been temporarily avoided reappear abruptly and unexpectedly..

For Rodolfo De Porras De Abreu, psychologist and manager of Psychologists Malaga PsicoAbreu, anxiety is related to the feeling of "not being in control of your life". Often people with anxiety feel that they are not in control of their emotions, their body, their relationships, their work, their life. Being in control is not about controlling everything, but about deciding what we want and what we don't want. It is common to find in anxiety therapies with patients who have dedicated their lives to making those around them happy, but have forgotten about themselves. Hence the importance of thinking about oneself and decide what kind of life you want to live.

Related to this, the psychologist Maribel Del Río says that anxiety can also be translated as an "excess of future". People with anxiety often ask themselves the question "What if...? They want to have everything under controlThey think that in this way they will have no reason to worry, because they will have a solution already chosen for every 'possible' problem.

However... When does everything go according to plan? Never. In addition, the psychological cost of constantly thinking of possible problems to be prepared for means that we can never enjoy the present and feel that our mind is going faster than our body.

What is the difference between normal and pathological anxiety?

The characteristics of normal anxiety are the following.

• The intensity and duration of the episode and its symptoms is proportional to the stimulus that provoked it..
• The individual's attention is focused on possible solutions to cope with the danger.
• Increased efficiency, performance and learning.

Here is an example:

In a mugging the victim can feel his mind racing to decide the best way to ask for help, how to do it, whether to attack the assailant or simply run away. While at the psychological level the mind is calculating the different solutions, at the physical and behavioral level the person is preparing to face the problem.. Curiously in these cases, the physical symptoms, in spite of being the same as in Anxiety Disorders, do not worry the person, because it is related and proportional to the external event.

On the other hand, the characteristics of pathological anxiety are the following.

• There may not be a stimulus or conscious thought that triggers it.
• The intensity and duration of the episode and its symptoms is disproportionate to the actual danger..
• The person's attention is focused on the physical symptoms as he/she does not understand the reason.
• The person usually blocks and worsens his/her performance.

An example of pathological anxiety may be the following:

In a public talk some people feel dizziness, tachycardia, trembling, shortness of breath, tingling, feeling faint or having thoughts such as getting stuck in mid-speech. In this particular case, there is no real danger, the intensity of the symptoms is excessive and the person can become blocked by the fear itself, increasing the feeling of helplessness and strengthening the pathological circle. In these cases the physical symptoms usually worry the person who suffers them, because he feels that they are not proportional to the threat.

Symptoms of anxiety

Anxiety causes physical, psychological and behavioral symptoms. The psychologists of the PsicoAbreu team affirm that physical symptoms are the ones that provoke the greatest concern and psychological consultations. Among the most common are choking sensation, pressure in the chest or knot in the stomach, tachycardia, dizziness or fainting sensation, vomiting, loss or excess of appetite, cold sweats, tingling and numbness in some parts of the body, sleeping problems, etc.vomiting, loss or excess of appetite, cold sweats, tingling and numbness in some parts of the body, sleep problems, etc.

The most frequent psychological symptoms include fear of losing control, fear of having a heart attack or dying because of the symptoms, depersonalization, derealization, difficulties in attention, concentration and memory, catastrophic thoughts.

Finally, in the behavioral symptoms people tend to avoid crowded places, go out alone, avoid certain situations, make checks to feel that everything is in order, etc.etc.

Types of Anxiety Disorders

The different forms that can adopt a Disorder of Anxiety are the following ones.

1. Panic Disorder

It is a psychological disorder in which a person has episodes of intense fear that are accompanied by symptoms such as chest pain, choking sensation, tachycardia, dizziness, Gastrointestinal problems, etc. that occur suddenly, lasting from a few minutes to a few hours. As a consequence of all this the person ends up developing a "fear of fearthat is to say, fear to feel again the anguish generated during one of these crises, which paradoxically can unchain a new crisis of anguish.

2. Agoraphobia

It has usually been related to the fear of being in open spaces. However, what the person really fears is to have a panic attack and to having a panic attack and finding it difficult or embarrassing to escape from the place.. Sufferers tend to avoid places such as shopping malls, public transportation and in severe cases, the person may even be afraid to leave home alone.

3. Generalized anxiety (GAD)

People with this disorder feel excessively worried about everything around them, whether they are important or not. They always put themselves in the worst and suffer constantly. Although they are able to recognize that they worry too much, they cannot control it.

4. Specific phobias

The person feels an irrational and excessive fear before a stimulus, place or situation, for what ends up avoiding them. The most common phobias are animals, darkness, blood, storms, heights, enclosed spaces, etc.

5. Social phobia

The person feels an intense and persistent fear of being judged negatively. by other people or doing things that make them feel embarrassed. Social phobia is often confused with shyness. However, in the shy person is able to relate and participate in social events, while who suffers from social phobia has a fear so intense that prevents participate in any way in public.

6. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

This disorder characterized by the realization of rituals or strange behaviors in order to calm anxiety with the objective of calming the anxiety arisen by a premonitory thought. Obsessions refer to intrusive thoughts, ideas or images, which provoke worry and anxiety and appear again and again in the mind. Compulsions are the actions that are carried out to reduce the anxiety provoked by the obsessions.

7. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

In PTSD the person experiences anxiety symptoms as a result of a psychological trauma such as the death of a family member, accident, robbery, etc.

The treatment

The team of psychologists at PsicoAbreu Psychologists Malaga is specialized in the effective psychological treatment of Anxiety Disorders. This therapy aims on the one hand to alleviate anxiogenic symptoms and on the other hand, to provide tools for the management and modification of emotional, thinking and behavioral factors that maintain high levels of anxiety and its consequences.