All of us get anxious from time to time.

To be anxious is to be human. A lot of things can give us pause for worry: a relationship, a job, finances or health problems. However, some of us are prone to have excessive anxiety that interferes with our ability to lead a normal life.

When anxiety is severe, prolonged and starts negatively affecting multiple dimensions of our lives, it is time to reach out for help.

In the field of mental health, the term anxiety disorder is a broad term that can refer to several types of clinical anxiety issues:

• Panic Disorder. Rapid heart rate, racing pulse, feeling suffocated, shallow breathing, chest pains, racing thoughts, feelings of impending harm or doom. Many people who suffer from panic attacks often show up at Emergency Rooms worried that they are having heart attacks because the symptoms are similar. Once, a person experiences one panic attack, successive attacks can occur by simply worrying about having another panic attack.  So a cycle of worry, panic attack, worry, panic attack, can be a debilitating cycle if no intervention is sought.
• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Feeling compelled to do certain things in a certain way, fear of being contaminated, fear of disorder or loss of control- all of which leads to significant distress.
• Social Phobia. Fear of being embarrassed in public.
• Agoraphobia. Fear of leaving one’s house.
• Anorexia Nervosa. The fear of gaining weight
• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Reliving in the present- a past traumatic event which brings about severe stress and anxiety symptoms.
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). This is the more common type of anxiety disorder which is described as having an overarching feeling of worry, anxiety, and/or fear which pervades many areas of life.

Remember that feeling anxious about the normal life stressors that are common to everyone, does not mean that we have an anxiety disorder. When these symptoms occur over a prolonged period of time and will not go away with self effort and which interfere with everyday functioning, then the anxiety has reached a clinical level and we need to seek help.

1. Excessive worry and distress (apprehensive expectation) about a number of events; and this worry continues for 6 months
2. The person is unable to control his/her feelings of worry
3. Restlessness or feeling keyed up or on edge
4. Irritability
5. Being easily fatigued
6. Difficulty concentrating or one’s mind going blank
7. Muscle tension
8. Sleep disturbance (difficulty falling or staying asleep, restless and unsatisfying sleep)
9. Racing thoughts that cannot be controlled
10. Sense of impending doom

When anxiety overtakes our lives and we cannot control the symptoms on our own, we need to seek help from a physician and/or a mental health professional.Many times a dual approach (medication coupled with mental health counseling) is taken to deal with clinical anxiety.

There are a variety of medications that can be prescribed for the treatment of the symptoms: Buspar, Wellbutrin, benzodiazepines (Xanax, Valium, Ativan, Klonopin), etc. The type of medication that is prescribed will vary depending on the severity of the symptoms.Because sleep disruption is common, a doctor may prescribe a sleep aid such as Lunesta or Ambien.

Using medications to treat the symptoms can be a great relief to the distressed person, allowing for effective therapeutic intervention such as talk therapy, cognitive and/or behavioral therapy as well as other counseling models.

Combining both medication and counseling can be highly effective in overcoming clinical anxiety. Letting anxiety go on untreated, can lead to serious physical and emotional health problems. If you or someone you know is suffering from clinical anxiety of any variety, get in touch with someone who can help.

Don’t sit by and hope it will simply go away on its own. There is help, relief, and healing available- all we have to do is reach out.