Anxiety disorders have a broad and powerful reach.
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) lists anxiety disorders as the most common mental health problem with 40,000 individuals 18 and older affected by an anxiety disorder each year. That is 18% of the adult population. Among teens the rate is 8%. For children and teens combined, ages 3 to 17, the rate is 3.0%.
With these statistics in mind, can we really feel hopeful about reducing something as debilitating and problematic as severe anxiety? Having treated children, teens, and adults for more than two decades I think we can.
1. Anxiety is something everyone has experienced: Born from our brain’s alarm system for danger, which triggers the fight or flight response, our very survival depends on anxiety’s rapid and uncomfortable symptoms. Who hasn’t stepped off a curb, only to automatically jump back as a car races by. Our response is automatic. No time to think, just do. As we regain our awareness, we may feel a racing heart, butterflies in our stomach, or even shortness of breath. While these feelings are uncomfortable, we are alive. The symptoms are a small, momentary price to pay for our survival. Likewise anxiety up to a certain point can be a good motivator, sometimes even helping with performance. The key is to keep it from tipping over and sending a powerful false alarm, whose signal goes well beyond what the situation calls for.
2. Anxiety is well researched: We know a lot about anxiety and how it works at the physiological, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral level. New technologies, such as magnetic imaging, have opened doors for seeing what is happening in the brain when it triggers anxiety. Likewise there is a growing body of information about how anxiety negatively impacts the body. And numerous studies on treating anxiety, give understanding to the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors associated with problematic anxiety and its maintenance
3. Anxiety is responsive to treatment: Just as anxiety itself is well researched, so is its treatment. Among various types of therapy, Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) has emerged as one of the most effective interventions. Harnessing information from research about what physiological, cognitive, behavioral, and emotional factors lead to and sustain anxiety, therapists can help individuals understand their specific symptoms’ and collaborate in developing individualized treatment plans for managing and reducing their anxiety. Medication is also often effective in reducing anxiety and can be used in combination with other therapies.
4. Children, Teens, and Adults can all get treatment: While children, teens, and adults differ developmentally and often face age specific stressors, the good news is the effective components of CBT, and other types of therapies, can be gaged to different age groups’ needs. This includes recognizing the specific stressors characterizing various developmental stages, and the impact they have as well as knowledge about cognitive and emotional development. And advances in neurobiology enhance our understanding of stress and anxiety’s impact on the brain across development. At the treatment level therapists can get training to transfer what research is discovering into developmentally appropriate interventions. Likewise websites, books, and other resources offer developmentally tailored information for anxious individuals and their families. (See below).
5. The tools you learn to manage anxiety can last a lifetime. As with any skill learned and practiced, anxiety management can be modified and used across time, situations, and symptoms. Ongoing practice of relaxation techniques such as calm breathing and muscle relaxation can help maintain a more relaxed baseline. Staying attuned to patterns of anxiety triggering thoughts and your reaction to them can also help with keeping anxiety from catching you off guard. Behaviorally, noticing what you want to avoid can be an important indicator that anxiety may be creeping up on you. Remember our default line of defense against what makes us uncomfortable is to avoid it. So continually practicing your skills for managing anxiety, even when you are not highly anxious, facilitates quick coping responses when you need them across time and situations.
So seeking treatment for problematic anxiety is not about getting rid of something, it is about gaining skills to keep it in check. This can seem really tough if not impossible if you or someone you know has reached a point where anxiety has taken over. But you can often gain control even over extreme anxiety, and free yourself from its grip.
Books:
Edmund J. Bourne, The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook
Tamar Chansky, Ph.D., Freeing Your Child from Anxiety
Dawn Heubner, Ph.D., What to Do When You Worry Too Much
Websites:
anxietybc.com
worrywisekids.org
aada.org