Anxiety For Dummies. Laura L. Smith

Anxiety For Dummies

Anxiety For Dummies - Laura L. Smith

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following:

       Accelerated heartbeat

       Shallow, rapid breathing

       A spike in blood pressure

       Dizziness

       Fatigue

       Gastrointestinal upset

       General aches and pains

       Muscle tension or spasms

       Sweating
These are simply the temporary effects that anxiety exerts on your body. Chronic anxiety left untreated poses serious risks to your health as well. We discuss the general health effects in greater detail in Chapter 2.

      Phobias are one of the most common types of anxiety, and we discuss them in detail in Chapter 2. A phobia is an excessive, disproportionate fear of a relatively harmless situation or thing. Sometimes, the object of the phobia poses some risk, but the person’s reaction clearly exceeds the danger. Do you know the technical names for phobias? Draw arrows from the common name of each phobia to the corresponding technical name. See how many you get right. The answers are printed upside down at the bottom.

      Be careful if you have triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13), because we’re giving you 13 phobias to match!

Technical Name Means a Fear of This
1. Ophidiophobia A. Growing old
2. Zoophobia B. Sleep
3. Gerascophobia C. The mind
4. Acrophobia D. Imperfection
5. Lachanophobia E. Snakes
6. Hypnophobia F. Fear
7. Atealophobia G. New things
8. Phobophobia H. Animals
9. Sesquipedalophobia I. Small things
10. Neophobia J. Mirrors
11. Psychophobia K. Heights
12. Microphobia L. Long words
13. Eisoptrophobia M. Vegetables

      Answers: 1. E, 2. H, 3. A, 4. K, 5. M, 6. B, 7. D, 8. F, 9. L, 10. G, 11. C, 12. I, 13. J

      As we say earlier in this chapter, most people simply choose to live with anxiety rather than seek professional help. Some people worry that treatment won’t work. Or they believe that the only effective treatment out there is medication, and they fear the possibility of side effects. Others fret about the costs of getting help. And still others have concerns that tackling their anxiety would cause their fears to increase so much that they wouldn’t be able to stand it.

      

Well, stop adding worry to worry. You can significantly reduce your anxiety through a variety of interesting strategies. Many of these don’t have to cost a single cent. And if one doesn’t work, you can try another. Most people find that at least a couple of the approaches that we review work for them. The following sections provide an overview of treatment options and give you some guidance on what to do if your self-help efforts fall short.

      

Untreated anxiety may cause long-term health problems. It doesn’t make sense to avoid doing something about your anxiety.

      Matching symptoms and therapies

      Anxiety symptoms appear in three different spheres, as follows (see the earlier section “Recognizing the Symptoms of Anxiety” for more details on these symptoms):

       Thinking symptoms: The thoughts that run through your mind

       Behaving symptoms: The things you do in response to anxiety

       Feeling symptoms: How your body reacts to anxiety

      Treatment corresponds to each of these three areas, as we discuss in the following three sections.

      Thinking therapies

      One of the most effective treatments for a wide range of emotional problems, known as cognitive therapy, deals with the way you think about, perceive, and interpret everything that’s important to you, including

       Your views about yourself

       The events that happen to you in life

       Your future
When people feel unusually anxious and worried, they almost inevitably distort the way they think about these things. That distortion actually causes much of their anxiety. In the following example, Luann has both physical symptoms and cognitive symptoms of anxiety. Her therapist chooses a cognitive approach to help her.

       Luann, a junior in college, gets physically ill before every exam. She throws up, has diarrhea, and her heart races. She fantasizes that she will fail each and every test she takes and that eventually, the college will dismiss her. Yet, her lowest grade to date has been a B–.

       The cognitive approach her therapist uses helps her capture the negative predictions and catastrophic outcomes that run through her mind. It then guides her to search for evidence about her true performance and a more realistic appraisal of the chances of her actually failing.

      As simple as this approach sounds, hundreds of studies have found that it works well to reduce anxiety. Part 2 of this book describes various cognitive or thinking therapy techniques.

      Behaving therapies

      Another highly effective type of therapy is known as behavior therapy. As the name suggests, this approach deals with actions you can take and behaviors you can incorporate to alleviate your anxiety. Some actions are fairly straightforward, like getting more exercise and sleep and managing your responsibilities. You can get good ideas on those actions in Chapter 11.

      On the other hand, a more critical type of action targets anxiety directly. It’s called exposure and feels a little scary. Exposure involves breaking your fears down into small steps and facing them one at a time. We cover exposure in Скачать книгу