If you thought diabetes or cardiovascular disease was the most common disease in the United States, think again. It’s actually anxiety. With 40 million Americans being affected, over 18% of the population is affected every year. And even though there is treatment and therapy available, only 36.9% of individuals seek treatment. Most people just live with their anxiety, only complicating matters for them.
Anxiety might not be a physical disorder, but its effects are. It can affect your physical, mental, physiological, and psychological health. Additionally, it makes you feel uninterested in most things and you experience a sharp decline in your ability to concentrate. Work, social and family life, ambitions, and life goals—all are affected.
But they don’t need to be affected when help is just around the corner in Florida. Advanced Hypnotherapy of Naples is a hypnotherapy service where therapists have dealt with many anxiety patients over the past years.
If you or someone you know suffers from anxiety, do not hesitate to call us or book an appointment today.
Anxiety: A mood condition that can often occur without any immediately identifiable triggering mechanism.
It is dissimilar to fear, which is an emotional response to a perceived threat or danger. Fear is related to specific behaviors of escape and avoidance. Whereas anxiety is related to situations perceived as uncontrollable or unavoidable. Another view defines it as “a future-oriented mind-state, in which one is ready or preparing to attempt to cope with upcoming negative events”. This suggests there is a distinction between future and present dangers, which distinguishes anxiety from fear.
Physical effects of anxiety may include Heart Palpitations, Muscle Weakness and Tension, Fatigue, Nausea, Chest Pain, Shortness of Breath, Stomach aches, and or Headaches. As the body prepares to deal with a threat: blood pressure and heart rate are increased, sweating is increased, blood flow to the major muscle groups is increased, while Higher brain function, Immune, and Digestive system functions are inhibited or suppressed (the Fight or Flight response).
External signs of anxiety may include pale skin, sweating, trembling, and pupillary dilation. Someone who has anxiety might also experience a sense of dread or panic. Although panic attacks are not experienced by every person who has anxiety, they are common symptoms. Panic attacks usually come without warning, and although the fear is generally irrational, the perception of danger is very real. A person experiencing a panic attack will often feel as if he or she is about to die or pass out.
Emotional effects may include: feelings of apprehension or dread, trouble concentrating, feeling tense or jumpy, anticipating the worst, irritability, restlessness, watching (and waiting) for signs (and occurrences) of danger, and feeling like their mind’s gone blank, as well as, insomnia, over-sleeping, bed-wetting, nightmares/bad dreams and obsessions about sensations. In some instances, people experience a “trapped in the mind” feeling and having a feeling like everything is scary. This then causes a need to hide (Sleep), get away, or stay vigilant.
Cognitive effects of anxiety may include thoughts about suspected dangers, such as fear of dying. Having a fear that pain in your chest is a deadly heart attack, or that the shooting pains in the head are the result of a tumor or aneurysm. One may feel an intense fear when thinking of dying, think of it more often than normal, or be unable to rid it from their mind.
Behavioral effects may include withdrawal from situations where unpleasant effects of anxiety have been experienced in the past. Effects may also include short temper, sleeping pattern changes, nail-biting, and increased motor tension (i.e. foot tapping, fidgeting).