An anxiety disorder is much more than being very nervous or edgy.
An anxious person will report an unreasonable exaggeration of threats, repetitive negative thinking, hyper-arousal, and a strong identification with fear. The fight-or-flight response kicks into overdrive.
Anxiety is also known for producing noticeable physical symptoms, such as rapid heartbeat, high blood pressure, and digestive problems. In General Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) the symptoms become so severe that normal daily functioning becomes impossible.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a common treatment for anxiety disorders. Cognitive-behavioral therapy theorizes that in anxiety disorders, the patient overestimates the danger of disruptive events in his life, and underestimates his ability to cope. CBT attempts to replace maladaptive thinking by examining the patient’s distorted thinking and resetting the fight-or-flight response with more reasonable, accurate ones. The anxious person and the therapist work to actively change thought patterns.
In contrast, instead of changing thoughts, mindfulness-based therapies (MBTs) seek to change the relationship between the anxious person and his or her thoughts.
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Mindfulness is the only thing that has helped me make continuing progress with my anxiety. I’m not sure I could have done it when the anxiety was at its peak, though.
David, I agree. As a therapist I find it is sometimes difficult to practice mindfulness at the hight of anxiety symptoms. I often practice both; use CBT to reduce the anxiety symptoms and later the mindfulness.
I have been reading about “psychoanalysis”; a theory of personality based on uncovering causes of behavior that were unconscious, or hidden from the person’s conscious awareness. Sigmund Freud, a psychologist in the early 1900′s, believed that when unconscious conflicts became extreme, psychological disorders could result. Which makes me wonder if something were to happen when you were an infant or possibly in a past life, could that be the reason why some people may have anxiety about sertain scenarios or objects; even if the conscious mind could have no memory of what happened?
I agree that it would be interesting to study the psychodynamics of a person with anxiety disorders, but regardless of the reason a person suffers from (GAD) or (SAD), they need a soultion to their problem. Cognitive Behaviorial Therapy seems to be a real soultion to help overcome or unlearn their behaviors. Another perspective of psychology that may be worth applying some techniques from is The Positive Perspective along with the Cognitive Behaviorial Therapy.
I struggle with large crowds of people in almost any setting, the only change I could find was when I was at home and brought the group there. This was a disaster years ago often resulting in me freaking out and with a strong response to fight over flight some evenings went from great to disturbing memories I still can’t understand or appreciate. Lucky for me my fighter instincts actually proved clutched. I started traveling constantly putting myself in rooms of people I never met. Sometimes I would hide in the corner yes but time and time again somebody I didn’t know would pull me into a group. Eventually I became capable of walking into a random group and socializing. The process took years,I’m sure there were some negative affects and it tookd a lot of strength. Now after attacking and respecting my weakness I’ve mostly over come it with a similar approach. I agree with this post very much.
Yes, I too use a mix of mindfulness and CBT. Sometimes its helpful just to observe the anxiety and you can use mindfulness as a way of observing other things that would normally go un noticed. If we move our awareness outward I often find it helps with the unwanted sensations. To look at the shapes, colours and textures of every day things that normally pass us by and help train the attention so that we aren’t always locked in a cycle of self awareness. There are many times of the day where the anxiety seems to go, but will come right back the moment you are aware that it’s not there, like going looking for it.
Sometimes, just accepting it’s there and not fearing the symptoms helps.
Cognitive Behaviorial Therapy seems to be a real soultion to help overcome or unlearn their behaviors. But medicine still need to treat anxiety disorder..