Living With Someone Who Has Anxiety Or Panic Attacks
If you or someone close to you has been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, you may be wondering at what causes these anxiety disorders. The answer is there are many factors that can contribute to or cause an anxiety disorder. Typically, a combination of a few of these factors coming together, over an extended period of time, can cause anxiety disorder in a person. It is unusual thought not rare for one factor alone to cause such anxiety and distress as is associated with anxiety disorders. It is possible that a single traumatic event may result in an anxiety disorder but typically it is believed to arise as a result of the combination of many biological, social and psychological factors.
Studies carried out so far have indicated that some factors play a major role in contributing to anxiety disorders. These are:
· Neurological Factors
· Heredity or Genetic Factors
· An Overworked or Overstressed Lifestyle
· Childhood Experiences
· Personality Factors.
Let us try and understand how each one of these factors can contribute to heightening a sense of anxiety in a person leading to anxiety disorder.
- Neurological Factors
When we feel we are in danger or feel threatened, our body has an inbuilt defense mechanism that helps us fight or flee. This consists of both physical and psychological reactions that aid us in acting to protect ourselves.
The physical reactions include an increased heartbeat, fast breathing, muscle tension and so on. The adrenal gland pumps out more adrenalin and you may actually feel more energy inside of you. These are the ways in which the body hopes to help you resolve the situation that is causing you anxiety. In fact, in most cases, it does. When you are stressed or afraid of any situation, all the above reactions help you to focus more on the problem at hand and work on resolving it.
For some people, however, these reactions tend to be of an extreme nature. Not only that, the mind starts perceiving everyday happenings and normal situations as life threatening. The body therefore is always in a heightened state of anxiety and continues to be in an equivalent physical state. The body continues to trigger responses similar to those when faced by danger even though no real danger exists.
There are indications that this kind of overreaction is caused by a certain kind of chemical imbalance in the brain. Though it is still not clear what causes this imbalance, the fact that medications aided to restore the chemical balance have helped reduce the anxiety disorder, seems to suggest that it does play a role. There is ongoing research to determine whether the overreaction to situations causes the chemical imbalance or the imbalance brings about the extreme reactions.
Many have found that as soon as their body starts exhibiting these physical symptoms, if they practice some relaxation techniques like deep breathing or meditation, it provides them with some relief and calms their system.
- Heredity or Genetic Factors
If there is one factor that research is fairly clear about, it is that anxiety disorders tend to be hereditary. In other words, they tend to run in families. If one member of the family is exhibiting anxiety disorder, chances are more members of the family are likely to have a predisposition to this disorder. In fact, research has shown that amongst identical twins, if one twin has an anxiety disorder, the other identical twin is more than likely to have it too. This is not always true in case of non-identical or fraternal twins, indicating that genetic factors too play an important role in the development of anxiety disorders. When these genetic or hereditary factors combine with other stressful life experiences, anxiety disorder may be triggered.
- An Overworked or Overstressed Lifestyle
When you are under stress or feeling overworked, your body and mind trigger responses that will help you get through the stressful period. They believe your safety is being threatened and emotional as well as physical responses are triggered to help you overcome those conditions. Once the stressful period is passed, your body and mind need time to heal and get back to experiencing normal activities again.
However, if you are constantly under stress and have poor lifestyle habits such as overworking, lack of rest and recreation, lack of adequate sleep, poor diet and lack of exercise, your body and mind are constantly at heightened anxiety levels. If they are not given time to relax and recover, your body and mind will be constantly under stress and will start reacting even to daily events as though they were real dangers.
Let us consider the typical day in the life of a busy working person – say, a marketing executive like Doug, and how an overload of stress can contribute to an anxiety disorder. After working for about 65-70 hours every week, Doug hardly has any time to sleep, let alone take some time out for himself. He has been going from one relationship to another and hardly spends any time at home. Doug has no time to exercise and to save time, he mainly survives on fast food. Over time, Doug’s body started viewing these continuing stressful factors as a constant threat to his survival. It started staying in a state of constant alert and even ordinary situations seemed life threatening to Doug. His physical and mental anxiety kept increasing til he started having repeated anxiety attacks.
While it is not possible to completely eliminate stress from your life, it is certainly in your power to get rid of as many stressors as you possibly can. Some of these are simple to do like having a healthy diet, exercising regularly and getting enough sleep. Others may need some work – like working through stressful periods more calmly and taking time out to cool down. This way your body and mind will learn to wind down once the stressful period is over.
- Childhood Experiences
Many underestimate the impact our childhood experiences have on us. Many unfortunately come from abusive homes where their childhood experiences would have left a scar on their young minds. Even as adults, the anxiety and fear that they would have felt as a child would have stayed with them. Combined with any other stressful event or period of extended anxiety, these feelings can quickly result in an anxiety disorder.
Even when adults around you have meant well, their actions and thinking would have left a very deep mark on you. For example, you may have picked up some beliefs or habits that contribute to anxiety. You may have somehow been given the impression that only by being successful can you gain love and acceptance. You may have been constantly criticized or judged and not been allowed to express your opinions or your feelings freely. You may have watched adults in your family or close to you react to things in life with great anxiety.
- Personality Factors
The psychological make up of a person has a lot to do with how one copes with stress and anxiety. It has often been found that a person with low self-esteem and inadequate coping skills is more prone to an anxiety disorder. Such a person may have a lot of negative thought patterns and may find it difficult to come out of these moods.
While everyone has negative thoughts occasionally, some are unable to keep these from overwhelming them completely and are also unable to find ways in which they can replace them with positive ones. If these people do not find ways of enhancing their self-esteem or find ways of coping with disappointments in life, they may find themselves having to deal with an anxiety disorder.
How does can you help your loved overcome Panic attacks?
Acknowledging that their feelings are real whether or not their concerns are is a start. Success for many can also be found in a great non-pill anti-anxiety program. Helping them through the program also increases their chances. For a recommendation of an anti-anxiety program click here.
