Anxiety

What is anxiety?

Anxiety is an emotion everyone experiences, sometimes frequently, and is a perfectly reasonable response to stressful situations like interviews, first dates, or meeting new people. You could have moments of anxiety every day without it being a problem, but if you are always anxious and afraid, it can have an impact on your physical and mental health.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by being constantly anxious and worried all the time, and it’s interfering with your ability to lead a rewarding, happy life, you could have an anxiety disorder.

What are anxiety disorders?

Anxiety disorders come in several different forms, all with the common symptom of being scared or worried to a disabling degree. The reasons why anxiety disorders develop in some people aren’t always clear, but experiencing extreme stress and having a genetic predisposition are both triggers.

Generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder

Generalized anxiety disorder is the most common type of anxiety disorder, making you feel worried about almost everything in your life, from the most straightforward task like making a cup of coffee to events in the news that are entirely beyond your control. 

Generalized anxiety disorder makes it hard to focus on what matters in your life, affecting your performance at work and relationships with family and friends. Panic disorder is similar to generalized anxiety disorder but causes frequent panic attacks that leave you frozen, terrified, and unable to act.

OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) and phobias

OCD causes anxiety to develop around thoughts and ideas that you can’t get out of your head, and the compulsive rituals you need to perform to combat the obsessions. Phobias are fears of specific objects or situations that are grossly out of proportion to the threat posed by the subject of a phobia.

PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder)

PTSD is a type of anxiety disorder that causes vivid flashbacks and nightmares of a traumatic event and often causes depression, substance abuse, and other mental health problems.

What treatments are there for anxiety?

The first step when you have an anxiety disorder is to try and make changes in your life to live more healthily, for example, exercising regularly, eating a nutritious diet, and tackling causes of stress.

When you visit Americas TMS Center, the team can help you with making these changes, and also prescribe medication like anxiolytic drugs or antidepressants to reduce the severity of your symptoms.

Anticonvulsant medicines and antipsychotic drugs in low doses can help some patients as well. Talking therapies such as CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) are also invaluable in helping with anxiety.

At Americas TMS Center, the team also offers transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a gentle, noninvasive therapy that could help you manage your anxiety by safely adjusting your brain function. TMS is highly effective at treating depression, too, which commonly coincides with anxiety.

If anxiety is overwhelming your life, call Americas TMS Center today and schedule a consultation, or book an appointment online.