Finally, the appendix lists books and Web sites for obtaining more information about the topics we cover in this book.
Icons Used in This Book
For Dummies books use little pictures, called icons, in the margins to get your attention. Here's what they mean:
The Anxiety Ax icon represents a particular action you can take to help get rid of anxiety.
The Remember icon appears when we want your attention. Please read the text associated with it for critical information.
The Tip icon alerts you to important insights or clarifications.
Warning icons appear when you need to be careful or seek professional help.
Where to Go from Here
Overcoming Anxiety For Dummies offers you the best, most up-to-date advice based on scientific research on anxiety disorders. If you want help controlling your negative thoughts, turn to Chapters 5, 6, and 7. You say you just want to relax? Try the techniques in Chapter 11. Or if you're worried about your job and finances, in Chapter 14 we provide tips for finding your next job and pinching pennies. If you practice the techniques and strategies provided throughout, you're likely to feel calmer. For many people, this book should be a complete guide to fighting frenzy and fear.
However, some stubborn forms of anxiety need more care and attention. If your anxiety and worry significantly get in the way of work or play, get help. Start with your family doctor to rule out physical causes. Then consult with a mental-health professional. Anxiety can be conquered; don't give up.
Part I
Detecting and Exposing Anxiety
In this part . . .
We explore the ins and outs of anxiety, discussing the anxiety epidemic that's going around and showing how anxiety affects the entire body. In this part, you can find all the major categories of anxiety disorders, along with an overview of what you can do to reduce anxiety. You discover how you can easily get stuck tackling your anxiety, and we tell you how to keep that from happening.
Chapter 1: Analyzing and Attacking Anxiety
In This Chapter
Growing by leaps and bounds: Anxiety's proliferation
Paying the tab for anxiety
Understanding anxiety symptoms
Getting the help you need
Stroll down the street and about one in four of the people you walk by either has an anxiety disorder or will at some point in their lives experience one. And almost half of the people you encounter will struggle with anxiety to one degree or another, although they may not have a full-blown anxiety disorder. The rate of anxiety disorders has climbed for many decades, and no end is in sight.
The world watches in fear as disasters, terrorism, financial collapse, pandemics, crime, and war threaten the security of home and family. Anxiety creates havoc in the home, destroys relationships, causes employees to lose time from work, and prevents people from living full, productive lives.
In this chapter, you find out how to recognize the symptoms of anxiety. We clarify the costs of anxiety — both personal and societal. We provide a brief overview of the treatments presented in greater detail in later chapters. You also get a glimpse of how to help if someone you care about or your child has anxiety. If you worry too much or care for someone who has serious problems with anxiety, this book is here to help!
Anxiety: Everybody's Doing It
Anxiety involves feelings of uneasiness, worry, apprehension, and/or fear, and it's the most common of all the so-called mental disorders. In other words, you definitely aren't alone if you have unwanted anxiety. And the numbers have grown over the years. At no time in history has anxiety tormented more people than it does today. Why?
Life has never been as complicated as it is today. The workweek has grown longer rather than shorter. Broken and blended families create increased stresses to manage. Computer screens and television news bring the latest horrors into your living room in real time. Newspapers, blogs, tweets, and magazines chronicle crime, war, and corruption. Terrorism has crossed the globe and escalated to new heights. The media's portrayal of these modern plagues includes full-color images with unprecedented, graphic detail. Let's face it, fear sells.
Unfortunately, as stressful and anxiety-arousing as the world is today, only a minority of those suffering from anxiety seek treatment. That's a problem, because anxiety causes not only emotional pain and distress but also physical strain and even death, given that anxiety extracts a serious toll on the body and sometimes even contributes to suicide. Furthermore, anxiety costs society as a whole, to the tune of billions of dollars.
When people talk about what anxiety feels like, you may hear any or all of the following descriptions:
When my panic attacks begin, I feel tightness in my chest. It's as though I'm drowning or suffocating, and I begin to sweat; the fear is overwhelming. I feel like I'm going to die, and I have to sit down because I may faint.
I've always been painfully shy. I want friends, but I'm too embarrassed to call anyone. I guess I feel like anyone I call will think I'm not worth talking to.
I wake with worry every day, even on the weekends. Ever since I lost my job, I worry all the time. Sometimes, when it's really bad, I think about going to sleep and never waking up.
Ever since my accident, I have nightmares and constant images racing through my mind about glass breaking, tires screeching, and passengers screaming. I'm so jumpy and irritable that I can barely get through the day.
I'm so afraid of flying that I can't travel, even though I'd like to.
I worry about germs and contamination so much that I wash my hands about 30 times a day — my hands are raw and bleeding. I just can't stop.
As you can see, anxiety results in all sorts of thoughts, behaviors, and feelings. When your anxiety begins to interfere with day-to-day life, you need to find ways to put your fears and worries at ease.
Tabulating the Costs of Anxiety
Anxiety costs. It costs the sufferer in emotional, physical, and financial terms. But it doesn't stop there. Anxiety also incurs a financial burden for everyone. Stress, worry, and anxiety disrupt relationships, work, and family.
The heartbreak of anxiety
Two studies have found a critical relationship between anxiety and heart disease. One investigation at Duke University divided cardiac patients into three groups: an exercise group, a stress management group, and a care-as-usual group. After five years, the stress management group had fewer additional heart-related problems than the other two groups. Although this was a small study, one researcher concluded that managing stress and anxiety is one of the most powerful tools in fighting heart disease. The other study, published in the January 2002 issue of the journal Stroke, found that men who suffer from anxiety and depression are much more likely to die from strokes than those without these psychological problems.
What does anxiety cost you?
Obviously, if you have a problem with anxiety, you experience the cost of distressed, anxious feelings. Anxiety feels lousy. You don't need to read a book to know that. But did you know that untreated anxiety runs up a tab in other ways as well? These costs include
A physical toll: Higher blood pressure, tension headaches, and gastrointestinal symptoms can affect your body. In fact, recent research found that certain types of chronic anxiety disorders change the makeup of your brain's structures.
A toll on your kids: Parents with anxiety more often have anxious children. This is due in part to genetics, but it's also because kids learn from observation. Anxious kids may be so stressed that they can't pay attention in school.
Fat!: Anxiety and stress increase the stress hormone known as cortisol. Cortisol causes fat storage in the abdominal area, thus increasing the risk of heart disease and stroke. Stress also leads to increased eating.
More trips to the doctor: That's because those with anxiety frequently experience worrisome physical symptoms. In addition, anxious people often worry a great deal about their health.
Relationship problems: Peo
ple with anxiety frequently feel irritable. Sometimes, they withdraw emotionally or do the opposite and dependently cling to their partners.
Downtime: Those with anxiety disorders miss work more often than other people, usually as an effort to temporarily quell their distress.
Adding up the cost to society
Anxiety costs many billions of dollars worldwide. A U.S. government report says that anxiety costs more than depression, schizophrenia, or any other emotional problem. The annual tab is estimated at more than $65 billion. The United Kingdom spent 32 billion pounds (approximately $53 billion) on mental healthcare in 2002, a huge portion of which was spent on anxiety-related problems. Even countries that spend little on mental healthcare incur substantial costs from anxiety disorders. These costs include
Decreased productivity
Healthcare costs
Medications
Decreased productivity is sometimes due to health problems made worse by anxiety. But the financial loss from downtime and healthcare costs doesn't include the dollars lost to substance abuse, which many of those with anxiety disorders turn to in order to deal with their anxiety. Thus, directly and indirectly, anxiety extracts a colossal toll on both the person who experiences it and society at large.
Recognizing the Symptoms of Anxiety
You may not know if you suffer from anxiety or an anxiety disorder. That's because anxiety involves a wide range of symptoms. Each person experiences a slightly different constellation of these symptoms. And your specific constellation determines what kind of anxiety disorder you may have. We discuss the various types of anxiety disorders in detail in Chapter 2.
For now, you should know that some signs of anxiety appear in the form of thoughts or beliefs. Other indications of anxiety manifest themselves in bodily sensations. Still other symptoms show up in various kinds of anxious behaviors. Some people experience anxiety signs in all three ways, while others only perceive their anxiety in one or two areas.
Thinking anxiously
Folks with anxiety generally think in ways that differ from the ways that other people think. You're probably thinking anxiously if you experience
Approval addiction: If you're an approval addict, you worry a great deal about what other people think about you.
Name that phobia!
Phobias are one of the most common types of anxiety disorder, 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 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. Atelophobia G. New things
8. Phobophobia H. Animals
9. Sesquipedalophobia I. Small things
10. Neophobia J. Mirrors
11. Psychophobia K. Heights
12. Tapinophobia 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
Living in the future and predicting the worst: When you do this, you think about everything that lies ahead and assume the worst possible outcome.
Magnification: People who magnify the importance of negative events usually feel more anxious than other people do.
Perfectionism: If you're a perfectionist, you assume that any mistake means total failure.
Poor concentration: Anxious people routinely report that they struggle with focusing their thoughts. Short-term memory sometimes suffers as well.
Racing thoughts: Thoughts zip through your mind in a stream of almost uncontrollable worry and concern.
We discuss anxious thinking in great detail in Chapters 5, 6, and 7.
Behaving anxiously
We have three words to describe anxious behavior — avoidance, avoidance, and avoidance. Anxious people inevitably attempt to stay away from the things that make them anxious. Whether it's snakes, heights, crowds, freeways, parties, paying bills, reminders of bad times, or public speaking, anxious people search for ways out.
In the short run, avoidance lowers anxiety. It makes you feel a little better. However, in the long run, avoidance actually maintains and heightens anxiety. We give you ways of dismantling avoidance in Chapter 8.
One of the most common and obvious examples of anxiety-induced avoidance is how people react to their phobias. Have you ever seen the response of a spider phobic when confronting one of the critters? Usually, such folks hastily retreat.
Finding anxiety in your body
Almost all people with severe anxiety experience a range of physical effects. These sensations don't simply occur in your head; they're as real as this book you're holding. The responses to anxiety vary considerably from person to person and include
Accelerated heartbeat
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.
Seeking Help for Your Anxiety
As we say earlier in this chapter, most people simply choose to live with anxiety rather than seek help. Some people worry that treatment won't work. Or they believe that the only effective treatment out there is medication, and they hate 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
Ten dubious duds
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