Anxiety disorders
One may feel anxiety before an important event—an exam, important business presentation, or a first date. Anxiety disorders (AD), though, are illnesses that fill people's lives with overwhelming anxiety and fear—fear that is chronic, unremitting, and can grow progressively worse. Anxiety disorders extending over several months' duration need treatment or the symptoms can worsen.
It is common for the symptoms of AD to occur with other physical or mental symptoms or conditions, including substance abuse (alcohol or drugs). According to the National Institute of Mental Health, anxiety disorders together are the most common mental illness in America. About 40 million American adults are affected by these conditions each year.
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Treatments for anxiety disorders
Effective therapies from medication to cognitive therapy. -
Types of anxiety disorders
Panic, phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress.
- Brain researchers and scientists have found a variety of biological and life experience indicators for anxiety disorders.
- It is common for anxiety disorders to accompany other conditions ranging from high blood pressure and migraines to depression and substance abuse.
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), once thought to occur only in war veterans, can occur in any person who experiences or witnesses a traumatic event.
