The first time Stephanie Cardamone experienced anxiety was in the seventh grade in New Jersey. She was playing basketball for an elite team full of talented players when she had a panic attack before practice. “I had convinced myself that I wasn’t good enough to be there,” says Cardamone, now 26 and living in Los Angeles. The disorder continued to haunt her into adulthood. “My anxiety has shown itself through extreme negativity, self-hatred and avoidance. Sometimes I wouldn’t want to move for days at a time and would isolate myself from my family or friends.”
It wasn’t until she graduated college that she realized “something was off. I tried to work through things myself, but it got to the point where I started to have suicidal thoughts and then I knew I needed help,” says Cardamone, a sales manager for a lighting and building control manufacturer.
Cardamone is far from alone. Anxiety is a very common disorder. About 18 percent of the U.S. population has it, says Simon Rego, chief psychologist at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. “That’s 18 percent of about 300 million people — that’s a huge number of people,” he says. Anxiety also tends to be chronic and can get progressively worse. The good news, though, is that it is also highly treatable. “In a relatively short amount of time — in weeks, not months or years — you can be treated and get a great response, and get your life back again,” Rego says.
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Fight or Flight Symptoms
Anxiety and depression share some similar symptoms, including trouble sleeping, difficulty concentrating, fatigue and feeling fidgety or restless, and often occurring in tandem, says Dr. Eric Bui, acting director of the Center for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Disorders at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. But they’re distinct diseases. “They differ on a number of aspects, including their main characteristics,” he says. ” Depression is characterized by consistent depressed mood, which is to say sadness and/or loss in interests, whereas anxiety disorders are usually characterized by fear and/or worry.”
Anxiety is a manifestation of our natural “flight or fight” response to a perceived danger. That response has evolved as an important defense mechanism for most species, including humans. “You need some level of fear or stress, or you would walk into trucks,” says Debra Kissen, clinical director of Light on Anxiety, a cognitive behavioral therapy treatment center in Chicago, and co-chair of the Public Education Committee for the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. “If you were not worried about the future, you wouldn’t study for that exam. So a certain amount of fear is good and adaptive.”
[See: How to Find the Best Mental Health Professional for You.]
The problem comes when that feeling of heightened awareness and fear becomes more frequent and more intense, is triggered by seemingly nonthreatening events and interferes with daily functioning, Kissen says. “The brain is always on high alert, sensing danger in every corner.”
Anxiety, like other mental illnesses, occurs across a spectrum from mild to debilitating. It is broken down into a few diagnostic categories:
— Panic disorder, in which there are recurring panic attacks;
— Social anxiety disorder, also called social phobia, which is characterized by a fear of being negatively evaluated in social situations;
— Generalized anxiety disorder, which is characterized by excessive and uncontrollable worry about several things, such as health, finances, your children, flying or even whether you left the stove on.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder are technically not considered anxiety disorders, Rego says, “but at their core, they clearly have anxious arousal as part of their presentation.” Using a door handle in a public bathroom or internal triggers like an intrusive memory from a traumatic event can trigger anxious responses like a racing heart, increased respiration, dry mouth, blurry vision, throat restriction, cold sweat and dizziness.
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Safe, Effective Treatments
There are a number of safe and effective treatments for anxiety disorders. The antidepressant medications known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, have proven effective. “Usually we need to increase the doses slowly and reach higher doses than for depression,” Bui says. Talk therapy, especially cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, has also been shown to help those with anxiety disorders. And there is increasing evidence that mind-body approaches, such as yoga or mindfulness medication, may work well for anxiety too, Bui says.
Cardamone has gone through cognitive behavioral therapy and was on antidepressants for about a year. “Both helped me a lot,” she says. “I highly recommend medication if you are struggling to a point where your anxiety is making it hard to function daily. CBT helped me figure out my negative thought patterns and change them or start thinking rationally. I also rely heavily on my faith — I’m a practicing Christian, and it’s helped me with expressing gratitude and being present and thankful for where I am.”
But it’s a constant struggle, Cardamone says. “I still experience anxiety in waves. It shows itself through the same things — negativity, guilt or self-hatred.” Meditation, deep breathing and being active helps, she says, as do the techniques she learned through CBT. “I used to lose days to anxiety. Now that I can change my thinking patterns quickly or identify when I’m being irrational, I don’t spend as much time dwelling on it anymore,” she says. “It takes time to practice CBT, and you go through a lot of trial and error, but it’s changed my life and the way I think about myself and other people.”
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The Many Ways Anxiety Affects Those Who Suffer From It originally appeared on usnews.com
