They often have trouble falling or staying asleep. Many individuals with GAD startle more easily than other people. They tend to feel tired, have trouble concentrating, and sometimes suffer depression, too. Usually the impairment associated with GAD is mild and people with the disorder don't feel too restricted in social settings or on the job. Unlike many other anxiety disorders, people with GAD don't characteristically avoid certain situations as a result of their disorder.
However, if severe, GAD can be very debilitating because of the excessive worrying, making it difficult to carry out even the most ordinary daily activities. GAD comes on gradually and most often hits people in childhood or adolescence, but can begin in adulthood, too. It's more common in women than in men and often occurs in relatives of affected persons. It's diagnosed when someone spends at least 6 months worried excessively about a number of everyday problems.
Excessive anxiety and worry apprehensive expectation , occurring more days than not for at least 6 months, about a number of events or activities such as work or school performance. The anxiety and worry are associated with three or more of the following six symptoms with at least some symptoms present for more days than not for the past 6 months; children don't need to meet as many criteria. Additionally, the anxiety or worry is not about having a Panic Attack, being embarrassed in public as in Social Phobia , being contaminated as in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder , being away from home or close relatives as in Separation Anxiety Disorder , gaining weight as in Anorexia Nervosa , having multiple physical complaints as in Somatization Disorder , or having a serious illness as in Hypochondriasis , and the anxiety and worry do not occur exclusively during Posttraumatic Stress Disorder PTSD.
The anxiety, worry, or physical symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning. The disturbance is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance e. Please visit our separate Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Center to learn the symptoms of this anxiety disorder.
Either while experiencing or after experiencing the distressing event, the individual has three or more of the following dissociative symptoms:. The traumatic event is persistently re-experienced in at least one of the following ways: The person experiences marked avoidance of stimuli that arouse recollections of the trauma e. The person experiences marked symptoms of anxiety or increased arousal e. The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning or impairs the individual's ability to pursue some necessary task, such as obtaining necessary assistance or mobilizing personal resources by telling family members about the traumatic experience.
The disturbance lasts for a minimum of 2 days and a maximum of 4 weeks and occurs within 4 weeks of the traumatic event. Often, people with PTSD have persistent frightening thoughts and memories of their ordeal and feel emotionally numb, especially with people they were once close to. War veterans first brought PTSD, once referred to as shell shock or battle fatigue, to public attention, but it can result from any number of traumatic incidents.
These include kidnapping, serious accidents such as car or train wrecks, natural disasters such as floods or earthquakes, violent attacks such as a mugging, rape, or torture, or being held captive. The event that triggers it may be something that threatened the person's life or the life of someone close to him or her.
Or it could be something witnessed, such as mass destruction after a plane crash. Whatever the source of the problem, some people with PTSD repeatedly relive the trauma in the form of nightmares and disturbing recollections during the day. They may also experience sleep problems, depression, feeling detached or numb, or being easily startled. They may lose interest in things they used to enjoy and have trouble feeling affectionate. They may feel irritable, more aggressive than before, or even violent.
Symptoms of Anxiety Disorders
Seeing things that remind them of the incident may be very distressing, which could lead them to avoid certain places or situations that bring back those memories. Anniversaries of the event are often very difficult. PTSD can occur at any age, including childhood.
The disorder can be accompanied by depression, substance abuse, or anxiety.
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Symptoms may be mild or severe--people may become easily irritated or have violent outbursts. In severe cases they may have trouble working or socializing. In general, the symptoms seem to be worse if a person--such as a rape, as opposed to a flood, initiated the event that triggered them. Ordinary events can serve as reminders of the trauma and trigger flashbacks or intrusive images.
A flashback may make the person lose touch with reality and reenact the event for a period of seconds or hours or, very rarely, days. A person having a flashback, which can come in the form of images, sounds, smells, or feelings, usually believes that the traumatic event is happening all over again.
‘Fear not’
PTSD is diagnosed only if the symptoms last more than a month. In those who do have PTSD, symptoms usually begin within 3 months of the trauma, and the course of the illness varies. Some people recover within 6 months, others have symptoms that last much longer. In some cases, the condition may be chronic. Occasionally, the illness doesn't show up until years after the traumatic event. The person has been exposed to a traumatic event in which the person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others and the person's response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror.
In children this may be manifested by irritable or disorganized behavior. The individual also has persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness not present before the trauma , as indicated by three or more of the following:.
Persistent symptoms of increased arousal not present before the trauma , as indicated by two or more of the following:. The disturbance, which has lasted for at least a month, causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning. Social phobia is an intense fear of possible scrutiny by others in a social situation. The individual experiences a great deal of fear about becoming humiliated in social situations, specifically of embarrassing yourself in front of other people. It often runs in families and may be accompanied by depression or alcoholism.
Social phobia often begins around early adolescence or even younger. If you suffer from social phobia, you tend to think that other people are very competent in public and that you are not. Small mistakes you make may seem to you much more exaggerated than they really are. Blushing itself may seem painfully embarrassing, and you feel as though all eyes are focused on you. Volunteers smelling anandrostadienone, masked with clove oil scent responded faster, especially to angry faces, than those smelling clove oil only, which was interpreted as anandrostadienone-related activation of the fear system.
Androstadienone is known to influence activity of the fusiform gyrus which is relevant for face recognition. A drug treatment for fear conditioning and phobias via the amygdalae is the use of glucocorticoids. The glucocorticoid receptors were inhibited using lentiviral vectors containing Cre-recombinase injected into mice. Results showed that disruption of the glucocorticoid receptors prevented conditioned fear behavior. The mice were subjected to auditory cues which caused them to freeze normally.
However, a reduction of freezing was observed in the mice that had inhibited glucocorticoid receptors. Cognitive behavioral therapy has been successful in helping people overcome their fear. Because fear is more complex than just forgetting or deleting memories , an active and successful approach involves people repeatedly confronting their fears. By confronting their fears in a safe manner a person can suppress the "fear-triggering memories" or stimuli.
Another psychological treatment is systematic desensitization, which is a type of behavior therapy used to completely remove the fear or produce a disgusted response to this fear and replace it. The replacement that occurs will be relaxation and will occur through conditioning. Through conditioning treatments, muscle tensioning will lessen and deep breathing techniques will aid in de-tensioning. Other methods for treating or coping with one's fear was suggested by life coach Robin Sharma. A person could keep a journal in which they write down rational thoughts regarding their fears.
Journal entries are a healthy method of expressing one's fears without compromising their safety or causing uncertainty. Another suggestion is a fear ladder. To create a fear ladder, one must write down all of their fears and score them on a scale of one to ten. Next, the person addresses their phobia, starting with the lowest number.
Finding solace in religion is another method to cope with one's fear. Having something to answer your questions regarding your fears, such as, what happens after death or if there is an afterlife, can help mitigate one's fear of death because there is no room for uncertainty as their questions are answered.
Religion offers a method of being able to understand and make sense of one's fears rather than ignore them. The fear of the end of life and its existence is in other words the fear of death. The fear of death ritualized the lives of our ancestors. These rituals were designed to reduce that fear; they helped collect the cultural ideas that we now have in the present.
The results and methods of human existence had been changing at the same time that social formation was changing. One can say [ by whom? The result of this fear forced people to unite to fight dangers together rather than fight alone. When people are faced with their own thoughts of death, they either accept that they are dying or will die because they have lived a full life or they will experience fear.
A theory was developed in response to this, which is called the Terror Management Theory. The theory states that a person's cultural worldviews religion, values, etc. To help manage their terror, they find solace in their death-denying beliefs, such as their religion.
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Another way people cope with their death related fears is pushing any thoughts of death into the future or by avoiding these thoughts all together through distractions. People who have lived a full life, typically do not fear death because they believe that they have lived their life to the fullest. Religions are filled with different fears that humans have had throughout many centuries. The fears aren't just metaphysical including the problems of life and death but are also moral.
Death is seen as a boundary to another world. That world would always be different depending on how each individual lived their lives. The origins of this intangible fear are not found in the present world. In a sense we can assume that fear was a big influence on things such as morality. This assumption, however, flies in the face of concepts such as moral absolutism and moral universalism — which would hold that our morals are rooted in either the divine or natural laws of the universe, and would not be generated by any human feeling, thought or emotion.
From a theological perspective, the word "fear" encompasses more than simple fear. Strimple says that fear includes the ". Fear in religion can be seen throughout the years, however, the most prominent example would be The Crusades. However, the message was misinterpreted and as a result, innocent people were slaughtered. Although the Crusades were meant to stay between the Muslims and the Christians, the hate spread onto the Jewish culture. Jewish people who feared for their lives, gave into the forced conversion of Christianity because they believed this would secure their safety.
Other Jewish people feared betraying their God by conceding to a conversion, and instead, secured their own fate, which was death. It can also be argued that Christians feared their religion not being the primary religion, and this is why they committed mass murder. Fear may be politically and culturally manipulated to persuade citizenry of ideas which would otherwise be widely rejected or dissuade citizenry from ideas which would otherwise be widely supported.
In contexts of disasters, nation-states manage the fear not only to provide their citizens with an explanation about the event or blaming some minorities, but also to adjust their previous beliefs. Fear can alter how a person thinks or reacts to situations because fear has the power to inhibit one's rational way of thinking. As a result, people who do not experience fear, are able to use fear as a tool to manipulate others. People who are experiencing fear, seek preservation through safety and can be manipulated by a person who is there to provide that safety that is being sought after.
Words become more real than reality" [83] By this, a manipulator is able to use our fear to manipulate us out the truth and instead make us believe and trust in their truth. Politicians are notorious for using fear to manipulate the people into supporting their will. Through keywords and key phrases such as, "it is for your safety," or "it is for the safety of this country," politicians invoke fear within people that their safety is at stake, and people will ultimately follow in line in order for their safety to be restored. Fear is found and reflected in mythology and folklore as well as in works of fiction such as novels and films.
Works of dystopian and post apocalyptic fiction convey the fears and anxieties of societies. The fear of the world's end is about as old as civilization itself. Such might constructively provoke discussion and steps to be taken to prevent depicted catastrophes. Many stories also include characters who fear the antagonist of the plot.
One important characteristic of historical and mythical heroes across cultures is to be fearless in the face of big and often lethal enemies. In the world of athletics fear is often used as a means of motivation to not fail. In this case the fear that is being created is initially a cognitive state to the receiver. Fear of failure as described above has been studied frequently in the field of sport psychology. Many scholars have tried to determine how often fear of failure is triggered within athletes. As well as what personalities of athletes most often choose to use this type of motivation.
Studies have also been conducted to determine the success rate of this method of motivation. Murray's Exploration in Personal was one of the first studies that actually identified fear of failure as an actual motive to avoid failure or to achieve success. His studies suggested that inavoidance, the need to avoid failure, was found in many college-aged men during the time of his research in In the context of sport, a model was created by R.
Lazarus in that uses the cognitive-motivational-relational theory of emotion. It holds that Fear of Failure results when beliefs or cognitive schemas about aversive consequences of failing are activated by situations in which failure is possible. These belief systems predispose the individual to make appraisals of threat and experience the state anxiety that is associated with Fear of Failure in evaluative situations. Another study was done in by Conroy, Poczwardowski, and Henschen that created five aversive consequences of failing that have been repeated over time.
The five categories include a experiencing shame and embarrassment, b devaluing one's self-estimate, c having an uncertain future, d important others losing interest, e upsetting important others. In summary, the two studies that were done above created a more precise definition of fear of failure, which is "a dispositional tendency to experience apprehension and anxiety in evaluative situations because individuals have learned that failure is associated with aversive consequences".
People who have damage to their amygdalae , which can be caused by a rare genetic disease known as Urbach—Wiethe disease , are unable to experience fear. The disease destroys both amygdalae in late childhood. Since the discovery of the disease, there have only been recorded cases. This is not debilitating; however, a lack of fear can allow someone to get into a dangerous situation they otherwise would have avoided.
For example, people who possess a lack of fear would approach a known venomous snake while those who possess fear, would typically try to avoid it. Fear is an important aspect of a human being's development. Another possibility of a lack of fear could be Antisocial Personality Disorder or more commonly known as sociopathy, which is a mental health condition where people often manipulate others. People who suffer from this disorder lack a physiological response and are capable of lying or not experiencing fear.
When a person is approached by something they fear or has a phobia, the body will react in a way that conveys this fear. For example, a person who possesses Arachnophobia, or a fear of spiders, would experience a physical response such as, nausea, dizziness, or even shaking when approached by a spider. However, a person with Antisocial Personality Disorder lacks this capability and would not activate their "fight or flight" response to such fear. They also disregard the safety of others and will often put them at harm or in the way of harm. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For other uses, see Fear disambiguation.
For other uses, see Scared disambiguation and Terror disambiguation. This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
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