How to Tell if You Have Anxiety Disorder

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Article Title:

How to Tell if You Have Anxiety Disorder

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Article Description:

If you're someone who can never earn enough or have enough

money to relax about it, and to enjoy spending it, you may

have underlying anxiety problems that you haven't had to

face, or you haven't wanted to face.

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Distribution Date and Time: 2010-12-23 10:30:00

Written By: Dr Jeannette Kavanagh

Copyright: 2010

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How to Tell if You Have Anxiety Disorder

Copyright © 2010 Dr Jeannette Kavanagh

Calming Words

http://www.calmingwords.com/

If you're someone who can never earn enough or have enough money

to relax about it, and to enjoy spending it, you may have

underlying anxiety problems that you haven't had to face, or you

haven't wanted to face. If opportunities to travel become

reasons for days or weeks of anxiety-induced upset tummy, while

you worry about packing, not packing; getting to the airport on

time; finding the right terminal; getting lost in a foreign

airport, driving in a foreign country, then it might be a good

idea to look at other areas of your life.

It's Important To Confront Your Anxiety

Not so that you can find a label to put on your behaviour, but so

that you can face your problems as the first step to managing

them. Why? Because chances are that if you worry excessively

about something as everyday as money or as unusual as travel, you

may see that you spend a great deal of your day, every day,

worrying in an unhelpful way about other things.

You probably also worry unduly about your job performance, and

you're far too concerned about running late for appointments and

about your contribution to work meetings. Your anxiety switch is

turned up way too high. Your anxietylevel is excessive to a point

where your quiet enjoyment of life is being seriously impaired.

Forget about whether or not you're ill, your life is so filled

with unhappy fear-filled feelings that you've forgotten how to

feel joy and happiness. Joy is your birthright.

A person who has problem levels of anxiety, tends to worry far

too much. Worry is their middle name.

They predict the worst about everything.

They worry, and sometimes feel intense levels of fear, about big

and little issues. That anxietymanifests itself as uncomfortable

physical symptoms throughout the day. Although that person may

have days, even weeks, without feeling too much fear and anxiety

about life, if they're invited to address a meeting at work, or

represent their political party at a debate, the roof of their

world will cave in. Sometimes, the person with what I term

background anxiety (anxiety that doesn't manifest itself as

debilitating attacks of panic, but stays in the background of

your life), sometimes that person has had much more serious

episodes of panic attacks and anxiety disorder in their

adolescence or early twenties. Once they escaped from those

attacks as many people do just by a process of maturation, they

regard the less severe anxiety as perfectly normal. It's not.

Generalized anxiety refers to a level of concern and worry that

has become dysfunctional rather than helpful in your day-to-day

life. As I mention throughout Calming Words, anxiety is a very

important part of our lives. Without it, we would not get up in

the morning in time for work, we wouldn't study for exams, train

hard for the Olympics, and nor would we make an effort to escape

real and present danger.

In other words, if your plane leaves at 6pm and you have to be at

the airport at 4pm, then you need to be there at 4pm. Making sure

that you get there by 2pm or even 2.30pm can place a lot of extra

strain on you, your family, and friends. Your normal, functional

and helpful anxiety which works with you to get you there on

time, has gone over the top. Given that you may not travel a lot,

that sort of highly anxious approach may be understandable, and

it's not likely to affect your life too much.

However, it is likely that the same person who stresses out about

being on time - to the point where he or she is obsessively early

- that person will also always, or usually, think the worst when

their relatives or friends are late, or ill.

Generalized anxiety is not just about being pessimistic, though

that is a component of this type of anxiety. It is more that in

every single sphere of life, the person worries, feels ill at

ease, and yes, just plain anxious. The alternative - that of

feeling positive and joy-filled is a state that s/he rarely

feels.

Seeking Help With Your Anxiety Problem

Many people with generalized anxiety do not seek help for their

anxiety because they put it down to " that's just the way I am.

I'm a worry wart " . That sort of generalized anxiety is perhaps

more difficult to diagnose and treat than something like a panic

attack. The panic attack is so intrusive into your life, and

makes life so obviously unpleasant and difficult that people do

reach out to seek help.

In the case of people who have generalized anxiety, they live a

life of quiet desperation and profound unhappiness. Rarely do

they just relax and enjoy, or even recognise, the blessings they

have in their lives. A great deal of their time is spent

criticising work colleagues and even family and friends - often

seen as the cause of their anxieties. Because they rarely breathe

in joy themselves, they are not as capable of transmitting sheer

pleasure and joy in being alive to those around them.

Although it is always difficult to define what is a natural and

normal level of concern about work, study, family, finances and

the state of the world, it is such a waste of the great and

finite gift of life, to spend so much of it in a negative,

fear-filled, state. And usually, there is no good and rational

reason for feeling that fear.

How often have you heard the expression: " Everything's a drama

to her " ?

In all likelihood, that drama queen is a highly anxious person.

Their anxiety and worry has led to the person experiencing at

least three of the symptoms listed below.

* Rapid heartbeat and palpitations, and an uncomfortable

awareness of the heart rate often accompanied by a dry mouth;

* Hyperventilation symptoms caused by rapid, shallow, breathing;

* Involuntary trembling of the body, or parts of the body, eg

the mouth;

* Feeling apprehensive, aroused and vigilant;

* Feeling " on edge, " impatient, or irritable, also related to

fatigue caused by insomnia and sleep disturbance;

* Need for frequent urination;

* Difficulty becoming sexually aroused or achieving orgasm;

* Difficulty swallowing, and in some cases, a fear that others

notice that difficulty;

* " Butterflies " in the stomach, gurgling sounds in the

intestines;

* Nausea and vomiting or dry retching;

* Diarrhoea and/or constipation;

If you regularly experience three or more of those symptoms,

please check with your doctor: you may have physical reasons for

those symptoms or you may have an anxiety disorder.

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Dr Jeannette Kavanagh has a counseling and coaching Practice in

Melbourne Australia, to help people find their unique solutions

to anxiety and panic attacks. For over two decades, Jeannette has

helped thousands of people overcome anxiety and panic attacks.

Visit her website http://www.calmingwords.com/ to sign up here

for a FREE MP3 (http://www.calmingwords.com/relax_on_cue.html)

" Relax on Cue " .