America is getting anxious. In a 2019 survey, more than 15% of American adults disclosed that they experienced anxiety symptoms in the last two weeks.
Adult anxiety is not just feeling a little nervous. It can be debilitating and disabling. There is a difference between the normal anxiety that new tasks might cause and living in a constant state of worry, so it would be wise to understand how adult anxiety functions.
What are the different kinds of anxiety disorders that you might experience as an adult? How can you get diagnosed with late-life anxiety? What therapies are available for you and your loved ones?
Answer these questions to understand your own experience and/or be part of the solution for adult anxiety. Here is your quick guide:
Types of Anxiety Disorders in Adults
Excess stress and late-life anxiety can manifest in many different ways. To receive help, you should familiarize yourself with the most common anxiety disorders.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
As the name suggests, generalized anxiety disorder involves persistent worries that do not center around a particular subject. You might find yourself overwhelmed with worry about your work performance, personal safety, and your health.
With generalized anxiety disorder, you might know that things aren't as bad as you're thinking, but you may still have a difficult time not worrying. Your mind may wander back to everything you're worried about and as a result it may feel impossible to concentrate on important tasks. It might feel like the worries have seeped into every moment of your day.
If you have generalized anxiety disorder, chances are that you're aware of your condition. This can even lead to feelings of insecurity about yourself or your thoughts. Unfortunately, this type of anxiety has a way of becoming a black hole where the worries become more pervasive and result in increased nervousness about things like meeting expectations or succeeding in the workplace.
Generalized anxiety disorder can develop at any age. Symptoms start out slowly and occur gradually, but may become worse during stressful times. Everyone is different and there is no one cause for the disorder, but it can run through families.
Social Anxiety Disorder
Social anxiety disorder involves intense fear in social situations. If you're experiencing social anxiety, you may be afraid that you will be rejected if you interact with others. You may feel embarrassed, perhaps for no apparent reason, and avoid social situations as a result. You may not participate in group activities or decline to speak in front of people. Another indicator that you might be struggling with social anxiety is if you avoid eating in public, thinking you look or sound awkward when doing so.
Social anxiety is not necessarily apparent in all social situations. You may be comfortable in a work or family setting, but not in recreational ones. You may talk to people you know but avoid people you don't. Like generalized anxiety disorder, there is no one cause, nor one single way that the symptoms show up for everyone.
Panic Disorder
Panic disorder, much like it sounds, causes panic attacks, which are episodes of overwhelming fear, and can often manifest as physical symptoms like a racing heart or inability to breathe. Panic attacks can happen as a result of feeling overwhelmed or stressed out, but tend to get worse when you start becoming afraid of having a panic attack, which ironically leads to more stress and therefore more panic attacks.
Panic attacks typically have a number of symptoms like heart palpitations, shortness of breath, trembling and dizzyness. One of the hardest parts of panic disorder is the worry about having another panic attack, which causes and avoidance of the place or situation where the panic attack first happened, such as a crowded room or a specific location.
Phobias are special kinds of panic disorders. They are irrational fears of an object, animal, or situation. With phobias, the object that you are afraid of may pose no risk to you, but you feel incredible anxiety anyway.
Diagnosing Adult Anxiety
Anxiety disorders are chronic conditions. It not only okay, but even normal, for you to have a brief burst of intense anxiety, especially if you are dealing with stress. Such anxiety can even be beneficial because it might propel you into action, such as when you need to prepare for a presentation or study for an exam. In these cases, anxiety helps us be aware of the consequences of being unprepared, and is actually functional in helping us to take the necessary steps to be prepared. The problem is when a heightened state of anxiety becomes the norm.
You do not have to have an anxiety disorder in order to suffer from anxiety. If you have been feeling uneasy over a long period of time, you should seek help.
PCPs are often a first stop for recognizing an anxiety disorder. You can speak with your doctor about your symptoms and get an evaluation of your overall health. This it important in order to rule out any physical ailments that are triggering the anxiety.
Once physical ailments have been rules out, you should seek out a mental health counselor and schedule an appointment to help you better understand the anxiety and begin developing appropriate coping skills and healing the root causes of the anxiety. During the initial evaluation, your counselor will ask you questions to better understand the background of the anxiety, possible triggers, and how it is impeding your quality of life.
Diagnosing generalized anxiety disorder is different from diagnosing other conditions, and counselors go on a case-by-case basis. Even if the criteria for a formal diagnosis isn't met, your counselor will work with you to define your goals and move towards an improved quality of life.
Therapy for Anxiety
Mental health counselors utilize a number of different approaches when working with individuals to address anxiety. While every counselor will have their preferred approaches, often their approach is a holistic one, with multiple therapies to help a person overcome their problems.
One common approach to anxiety counseling is talk-based therapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy is a form of talk therapy where your counselor will help you examine your thought patterns that may be contributing to your anxiety. In this form of therapy, you will learn to recognize, interrupt, and change the thought patterns so that you can be more aware and intentional in how you perceive and talk to yourself about various situations and develop more functional thoughts.
Somatic therapy is a way of tapping into the body's wisdom to understand what function the anxiety plays at a deeper level. In using somatic approaches, your counselor will help you recognize how your physical body is holding onto various beliefs that may be rooted in past traumas or lifelong difficulties. This approach is also useful in helping you to learn about your internal strengths that your anxiety may be preventing your connection with. Somatic therapy is highly individualized and can help you achieve a deeper sense of healing and developing strength.
Family members can also be a part of the solution. Family counseling is a way for family members to meet together with a counselor and work through problems that are contributing to anxiety.
Get Help for Adult Anxiety
Adult anxiety is everywhere. Generalized anxiety disorder involves feelings of dread that may show up for no apparent reason. Social anxiety disorder impacts social skills while panic disorder can trigger panic attacks.
Anyone who feels like they have a problem with anxiety should get help. Doctors can perform physical evaluations while counselors perform psychiatric ones.
Treatment is comprehensive, incorporating several therapies. A regimen of talk, somatic, and medication therapy works for many people.
You can start your anxiety treatment in no time. Haven Mental Health Counseling serves New York City residents. Contact us today.