Anxiety Disorder

According to statistics from the Anxiety Disorders Association of America, conditions ranging from OCD to phobias to post-traumatic stress disorder plague over 40 million Americans, making anxiety disorders the most common mental illness in the United States.

Anxiety, in and of itself, is normal and healthy.

Awareness of danger and a reasonable degree of apprehension help us complete tasks, get to work on time and not walk into traffic. People with chronic anxiety experience constant worry and fear in disproportion to reality. An anxiety disorder is characterized by having obsessive thoughts or irrational fears with such regularity and intensity that they disrupt someone's life.

People with anxiety disorders can recognize their behavior is irrational but still have no control.

Part of the anxiety-addled mind is overcome with unreasonable fear while another part remains sober and objective. “The person accommodates the anxiety even though they have an awareness that the fear doesn’t make sense to them or to other people,” says Jerilyn Ross, president of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America. The problem is then exacerbated when the person concludes something must be terribly wrong with him or her to be so deluded.

The source of a panic attack is often undetectable.

When we are in true danger, our body’s fight-or-flight response kicks into action to get us out of harm’s way. A person having a panic attack experiences that rush of terror and all the physiological sensations that can go along with it, like a racing heart, tight chest and lightheadedness. However, the threat is absent.

Ross explains further, “If you were in a dangerous situation, like a truck barreling toward you as you cross the street, your body’s fight-or-flight response warns you of danger and helps you survive the situation. In people with panic disorder, that fight-or-flight response goes off like a false alarm. They could be standing in line buying groceries, talking to a neighbor, and all of a sudden their brain gets a message that something horrible is about to happen.”

Several cases have been cited in which people predisposed to severe anxiety experience panic attacks after consuming caffeine or while high (in others, marijuana has been known to relieve symptoms). Self-medicating with alcohol can also be risky; while a single drink might temporarily provide relaxation, panic attacks frequently come on with the loss of control once more alcohol is consumed or during the following day’s hangover.

One key in treating chronic anxiety is helping people understand that their symptoms, frightening though they may be, are not dangerous. “A big part of treatment is getting people to understand the fear is not real, and to desensitize them,” says Ross. “In cognitive-behavior therapy we try to rewire their circuitry so they know their body is fooling them. Once you can teach people to take the fear out of it, the impact is lessened. The goal is to get them bored with those terrifying feelings.”

Patients may require therapy, medication or a combination of the two. Drugs for long-term treatment include SSRI’s (known more widely as a depression treatment), benzodiazepines and Buspirone. Short-acting drugs like Xanax and Klonopin can be prescribed episodically to help someone manage anxiety-inducing activities such as getting on an airplane.

To learn more about anxiety, see our Symptom Checker. Locate a therapist near you or find additional resources at the Anxiety Disorder Association of America.

Find more on MSN Health & Fitness:

• Mental Health: What's Normal, What's Not
• Psychotherapy: Improve Your Mental Health Through Talk Therapy
• Mental Health Message Boards