Anxiety

When should I seek help for anxiety?

Everyone experiences anxiety during daily life because it serves an essential role. Emotions such as worry, fear, or dread, trigger your brain to release hormones. The hormones immediately energize your body, giving you the ability to deal with the situation or make a quick escape.

Anxiety goes from being a beneficial response to a health problem when it becomes an ongoing feeling that seldom (if ever) goes away. It’s time to seek help when your anxiety:

• Causes uncontrollable fear and dread
• Compels you to change your daily activities (to avoid anxiety)
• Prevents you from fulfilling daily responsibilities
• Sticks around even if you don’t face a threatening or worrisome situation

Anxiety affecting your ability to enjoy life is a red flag that you have an anxiety disorder that won’t improve without treatment.

What symptoms does anxiety cause?

You can have one of several anxiety disorders, and each one has a unique group of symptoms. For example, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) causes constant fear or worry over daily issues (like finances, children, and health), whether or not a real problem currently exists.

By comparison, phobias cause an intense fear of a single object or activity, such as spiders or flying in a plane. Another common condition, social anxiety disorder, makes you dread public places, meeting new people, and performing in front of others. 

All anxiety disorders can cause symptoms such as:

• Sweating
• Nausea
• Irritability
• Nervousness
• Loss of appetite
• Difficulty sleeping
• Stomach aches, headaches, and body aches

Though not as common, severe anxiety may cause a panic attack, leading to symptoms such as chest pain, dizziness, and difficulty breathing.

How is anxiety treated?

After learning about your symptoms and completing a psychiatric evaluation, your Just Psych, LLC, provider recommends a treatment plan from a psychiatric and psychological perspective that meets your unique mental health needs.

Therapy, often the primary treatment for anxiety, helps many people learn to manage their feelings. Your provider is highly trained in many therapeutic approaches that improve anxiety. For example, cognitive-behavioral therapy teaches you to recognize and change the negative thoughts that cause anxiety.

With a focus on holistic mental health care, your provider may also teach techniques that help you relax and let go of the fear. If you have severe anxiety or panic attacks, they can also prescribe medication that quickly eases your feelings.

If anxiety seems to control your life, call Just Psych, LLC, or schedule an appointment online today.