Nervousness

Anxiety disorders are the most common of emotional disorders, annually affecting more than 20 million Americans (approximately one in nine). Symptoms of anxiety disorders can include:

  • Overwhelming feelings of panic and fear
  • Uncontrollable obsessive thoughts
  • Painful, intrusive memories; recurring nightmares
  • Nausea, sweating, muscle tension, and other uncomfortable physical reactions

Anxiety disorders differ from normal feelings of nervousness, as the symptoms often occur for no apparent reason and do not go away. Rather than functioning as a call to action, these alarming reactions can make everyday experiences sources of potential terror. If left untreated, anxiety disorders can propel people to take extreme measures (such as refusing to leave the house) to avoid situations that may trigger or worsen their anxiety. Job performance and personal relationships inevitably suffer as a result.

The anxiety disorders are the most common, or frequently occurring, mental disorders. They encompass a group of conditions that share extreme or pathological anxiety as the principal disturbance of mood or emotional tone. Anxiety, which may be understood as the pathological counterpart of normal fear, is manifest by disturbances of mood, as well as of thinking, behavior, and physiological activity.

Scientists have learned a great deal more about the workings of the brain as a result of their investigations into how psycho- therapeutic medications relieve disorders such as psychosis, depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, and panic disorder.

Just as aspirin can reduce a fever without clearing up the infection that causes it, psychotherapeutic medications act by controlling symptoms. Like most drugs used in medicine, they correct or compensate for some malfunction in the body. Psychotherapeutic medications do not cure mental illness, but they do lessen its burden. In many cases, these medications can help a person get on with life despite some continuing mental pain and difficulty coping with problems.

Anxiety is often manageable and mild. But sometimes it can present serious problems. A high level or prolonged state of anxiety can be very incapacitating, making the activities of daily life difficult or impossible. Besides generalized anxiety, other anxiety disorders are panic, phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and posttraumatic stress disorder.

The core symptom of panic disorder is the panic attack, an overwhelming fear of being in danger, during which the individual may experience:

  • Pounding heart or chest pain
  • Sweating, trembling, or shaking
  • Shortness of breath or 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 these attacks occur unexpectedly and seemingly without reason, people with panic disorder often first believe that they are having a heart attack.

Phobias, which are persistent, irrational fears and are characterized by avoidance of certain objects, places, and things, sometimes accompany anxiety. A panic attack is a severe form of anxiety that may occur suddenly and is marked with symptoms of nervousness, breathlessness, pounding heart, and sweating. Sometimes the fear that one may die is present.

The secret to achieving true calm, without drugs, is with practice. Nervous people have a tendency to take short shallows breaths, concentrate on breathing slowly and deeply.

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