Social Anxiety
Do you often feel nervous in social situations?
Do you have difficulty initiating conversations?
Do you worry about embarrassing yourself in front of others?
Are you too shy or nervous to pursue a romantic interest?
Do you have trouble asking for a raise or promotion?
If you have answered yes to any of the above questions, you may have Social Anxiety Disorder.
Anxiety – Panic Attacks
Anxiety disorders are the most common emotional disorders and affect more than 25 million Americans. Anxiety disorders differ from normal feelings of nervousness.
Untreated anxiety disorders can push people into avoiding situations that trigger or worsen their symptoms. People with anxiety disorders are likely to suffer from depression, and they also may abuse alcohol and other drugs in an effort to gain relief from their symptoms. Job performance, school work, and personal relationships can also suffer.
The many forms and symptoms of anxiety include:
- Overwhelming feelings of panic and fear
- Uncontrollable obsessive thoughts
- Painful, intrusive memories
- Recurring nightmares
- Physical symptoms such as feeling sick to your stomach, “butterflies” in your stomach, heart pounding, startling easily, and muscle tension
A common type of Anxiety Disorder is Panic Disorder. The core symptom of panic disorder is the panic attack, an overwhelming combination of physical and psychological distress.
During an attack several of these symptoms occur in combination:
- Pounding heart or chest pain
- Sweating, trembling, shaking
- Shortness of breath, a sensation of choking
- Nausea or abdominal pain
- Dizziness or lightheadedness
- Feeling unreal or disconnected
- Fear of losing control, “going crazy,” or dying
- Numbness
- Chills or hot flashes
- Because symptoms are so severe, many people with panic disorder believe they are having a heart attack or other life-threatening illness.
Relief from Anxiety
You may believe that being free of anxiety is a wonderful idea that is just too good to be true. Whether you have lived a lifetime feeling anxious and scared or you have sudden panic attacks, the thought of being free of that anxiety is like a dream that’s dangling in front of you, but always just out of your reach.
Anxiety disorders can be treated with psychotherapy, medication, or both. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy – CBT is the most common treatment for phobias, that is, irrational fears of certain objects or situations. If you have generalized anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorder, CBT can help you learn to respond differently to situations that cause anxiety.
Getting relief from your anxiety will take some time and effort on your part. You’ll have to do some soul-searching and some house cleaning with the negative experiences of your life. Anxiety is an underlying fear of the future, a feeling of being vulnerable, and out of control, and expecting the future to be like the past.
When you resolve your emotional pain about the past, and take back your personal power, and make the changes you need to make in your life to make it more of what you want it to be, anxiety has a way of greatly decreasing and even falling by the wayside. You’ll discover a new sense of yourself that will excite you and amaze you. Often it feels like being a whole new person! When you work on releasing your anxiety issues, you’ll discover that you do have power and you can choose to make your life what you want it to be.
