Anxiety Disorder
Can Order Come Out Of Anxiety Disorder?
High Anxiety Disorder
There was a story (perhaps told by Mr Brooks himself), that Mel Brooks understood what an Anxiety Disorder was – he made a film called “High Anxiety”, but then was too worried to watch it. Boom! Boom!
Meanwhile, outside the environs of Hollywood, Anxiety Disorder is a collective categorisation of several different presentations of fear or anxiety. Psychiatry accepts the existence of quite an extensive list of conditions in the category of Anxiety Disorder. Research indicates up to 20% of Americans may be affected by such disorders at some time. We have included this article and that dealing with Symptoms of Anxiety Disorder with our articles about depression because very often anxiety disorder presents in patients suffering clinical depression.
Defining Anxiety Disorder
“Anxiety” and “fear” are freely interchanged in everyday conversation, but, clinically, anxiety is an uncomfortable emotional and physiological reponse, seen as unavoidable and beyond the sufferer’s control, stemming from a source unknown. Fear, on the other hand, describes an emotional and physiological response to an identifiable external threat. When we talk of an Anxiety Disorder we include both terms. We note that perhaps the majority of Anxiety Disorder sufferers exhibit phobias which may be characterized as an extreme and irrational fear of simple things or social situations.
Anxiety Disorder Diagnosis
Frequently debilitating and chronic, an Anxiety Disorder may present in the young or following an ‘traumatic’ event at any stage of life. Classically, when a sufferer is under stress their Anxiety Disorder may be particularly difficult to live with, highlighted by, for example, sweating, panic attacks, palpitations, high blood pressure, stress headache, lack of energy and fatigue.
An Anxiety Disorder often presents together with other mental disorders, especially clinical depression. Heredity is also a factor as an Anxiety Disorder occurs statistically more frequently where there is a family history of such disorders.
Anxiety Disorder: causes and contributors
A correlation is reported between anxiety disorders and difficulty in maintaining balance, suggestive of a malfunction in the parabrachial nucleus in the brain which, inter alia, co-ordinates signals from the amygdala with input affecting balance. The amygdala is also concerned in the emotion of fear. Readers might also like to know that reduced levels of the neurotransmitter GABA contribute to anxiety.
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), drugs often used to treat depression, are also used in the treatment of an Anxiety Disorder, perhaps lessening anxiety as a result of acting directly on GABA neurons, rather than improving mood.
About half of those suffering anxiety disorders have aggravating issues related to alcohol or benzodiazepine usage. Exposure to organic solvents such as those used in painting, varnishing and carpet laying is correlated to the development of an Anxiety Disorder in those working in such fields. This discussion continues at Symptoms of Anxiety Disorder.
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