Firstly, What is anxiety and anxiety disorders?
Anxiety is a normal reaction to stress or difficult times. It provides motivation for achievement. Everyone feels anxious now or then. Example:- You may feel anxious before an exam; when faced with a problem at work.
But anxiety disorders are different. They're a group of mental illness that causes constant overwhelming anxiety and fear. It interferes with day-to-day life making you avoid work, school, and other social situation that might trigger or worsen your symptoms. It is the most common mental disorder which may feel impossible to control or manage.
There are different types of anxiety disorders. Among them, the most common types of anxiety disorders are generalized anxiety disorder(GAD), obsessive-compulsive disorder(OCD), social anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and panic anxiety disorder.
So, What is a generalized anxiety disorder?
These are the anxiety disorder in which anxiety is unvarying and persistent. You feel excessive unrealistic worry and tension with little or no reason. In order to make a diagnosis, it should last at least 6 months.
The exact cause of GAD is unknown but some factors that contribute to causing GAD are; family history(it may pass from family members having GAD), due to imbalance in biochemicals of the brain, and sudden trauma or stressful events, such as abuse, death of loved ones, divorce, etc. It occurs most frequently in women.
Some common symptoms seen in GAD are; excessive, ongoing worry and tension, irritability, restlessness, headaches, sweating, nausea, difficulty concentrating, tiredness, trembling, trouble falling asleep, an unrealistic view of problems.
A study has shown that there are surprising benefits of worry for people with GAD. It may surprise you that people with GAD actually worry for a reason. Generalized anxiety disorder is mainly defined as unrealistic worry and many people believe that they are just worrying for no reason. But the study shows that they actually worry for a reason and that reason is to protect themselves.
You may wonder what may be the benefits of constant worrying. Worrying about something put your mind into a negative state, and when something negative happens you don't feel that much worse.
The negative events like - the death of loved ones, job loss, divorce, rejection from loved one- don't have a massive effect on your emotion as you've already been feeling bad. You worry too much in an attempt to protect yourself from these negative life events.
What can you do to manage GAD or control your worry?
It may be challenging as people may not understand your worry without any reason. You cannot just stop worrying at once. Some people may tell you to stop worrying, you don't have any reason to worry. But saying that sort of things can't help you. They don't understand your illness.
Although it sounds challenging, there are things that you can do to retrain your brain to stop worrying. Consult psychiatrist to understand about your illness and take proper medication. Medication may only help you for a short period but if you want to learn to recognize and change thought patterns and behaviours that lead to anxious feelings then cognitive-behavioural therapy can help.
You can change the way you think by accepting that the worry is serving a purpose to avoid a sudden negative swing. Don't struggle too much to control your worry. 'Worrying about worry' is not an effective problem-solving technique. Start to delve deeper so you can discover that the negative swing is probably less negative than you think. You can then swap the threatening realities with positive ones.
It can be challenging and frustrating to live with GAD. The constant worry can make you feel tired, but with the combination of medicine and counselling, you can address this effectively.
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