Posts Tagged ‘anxiety cures’

Here are 8 short documentary’s on anxiety,depression, and stress, in video number 8 he talks about Is Anxiety Inherited, do we have an anxiety gene?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Is Anxiety Inherited, he is not saying a definite no to this, but what i feel he is saying is, that the behaviour is learnt.

It has been a known information for many years that anxious parents can pass anxiety disorders on to their children.  Although this truth is well known, no one is prepared to say yes to this question "is anxiety inherited”.

But now, a new study by the scientists at Johns Hopkins Children’s Centre, came up with the conclusion that a family-based program where parents and children are being treated jointly, can reduce the symptoms and risks of anxiety amongst these children.

Each person can get fretful from time to time, but when the crisis starts taking over one’s life, the condition is then called anxiety disorder. It can be exceedingly stressful and inhibit people from living their lives fully. Some individuals with anxiety disorder may also have phobias and develop panic attacks.

For the study purposes, the Hopkins investigators looked at 40 children with the ages between 7 and 12 years. The children were not diagnosed with anxiety disorder themselves but all of them had at least one parent who was diagnosed with the condition.  What other proof do we really need to answer the question "is anxiety inherited".

Researchers randomly split the participants into two groups, with 20 of the children and their families taking part in an 8-week cognitive behavioural therapy program, while the other 20 were put on a waiting list and did not receive any treatment during the period of the study, but were offered therapy one year later.

The CBT program, which consisted of one-hour-long weekly sessions, was focusing on an development of problem-solving skills, instruction about anxiety disorder, as well as helped parents identify and change behaviours alleged to contribute to anxiety in the children.

The chief researcher of the study, Dr. Golda Ginsburg, PH.D., a child psychologist at Hopkins Children’s Centre and an associate professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, said that according to the records gathered by the experts, the children of parents with an anxiety disorder are up to seven times more likely to develop the disorder themselves, and up to 65 per cent of kids who live with an anxious parent meet the criteria for anxiety disorder.

The results of the trial revealed that within a period of 12 months, 30 per cent of the children who did not participate in the program, had developed an anxiety disorder, compared to none of the children who were enrolled in the family based therapy. A 40 per cent decrease in anxiety symptoms in the year after the therapy program were independently reported by parents along with investigators who analyzed the behaviour of the kids and their parents. There was no fall of anxiety symptoms observed among children on the waiting list.

The parental behaviours adapted with therapy program included overprotection, excessive criticism and excessive expression of fear and anxiety in front of the kids. The program targeted childhood risk factors such as avoiding anxiety-provoking situations and anxious thoughts.

According to a recent editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine, it is deterrence and not treatment, of childhood anxiety, that is of a primary importance, because anxiety disorders affect one in every 5 children in the United States, but very often are left unrecognized. If not addressed in time, the trouble can lead to depression, substance abuse and poor academic performance throughout childhood years and way into adulthood.

Results of the study will be published in the June issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. The study was funded by the US government’s National Institute of Mental Health.  So "is anxiety inherited", yes.  Can we change the pattern of behaviour yes!

For those of us who suffer with anxiety attacks, we know what it feels like. Our heart pounds. We get butterflies in our stomach. We worry and fret over everything and anything.  We have hot and cold sweats.  Our throats go dry and we have difficulty swallowing, just to name a few.

If you are experiencing any of the above, then you may well be suffering with anxiety attacks.

Anxiety attacks can occur out of the blue.  I have spoken with plenty of people who have said "my life is great; I don’t understand why I am suddenly suffering with anxiety attacks".  This is the nature of the beast.  There is no designated format for anxiety attacks.  They can transpire to people whose lives are going really well, as well, as those who lives are not going so well.

This is why anxiety attacks are so difficult to diagnose.  It’s not like having a cold or some other illness, where there symptoms are typical and easy to make out and diagnose.

Understanding what anxiety attacks are will help you to have more control. It’s normal to worry and feel tense or anxious when under burden or facing a stressful situation. Anxiety is the body’s natural response to danger, an automatic alarm that goes off when we feel threatened.

With my personal experience off living with anxiety attacks, I am alert of the fact that the more you think about the anxiety the deeper ingrained the symptoms become.  The stronger the symptoms, the stronger the anxiety attacks become.  Then you’re in the realms of a viscous circle.   This is when it becomes really tough to over come these anxiety attacks.

It’s not till you really become aware of the fact that your thoughts have created your anxiety, so it stands to reason that if you have created the anxiety attack then surely you can UN-create the anxiety attacks.  This part is really hard for people to understand.  And I know exactly how they think!  When I was told this, I rejected it.  Why would I want to do this to myself?  It did not make sense.

But at the end of the day no matter how much I tried to pay no attention to that fact, it was right, my thoughts where the root of my anxiety.  I experimented with it.  The more I focused my energy on the anxiety the stronger my anxiety attack became.  So with the help of a therapist, I was able to work on my thoughts and beat my anxiety.

I am not anxiety free, however I am able to prevent my anxiety before it becomes a full blown anxiety attack.

One more thing to bear in mind, is that anxiety may be unpleasant, but it isn’t always a unpleasant thing. In fact, anxiety can help us stay alert and focused, spur us to action, and provoke us to solve problems. But when anxiety is constant or overpowering, when it interferes with our relationships and activities-that’s when you’ve crossed the line from normal anxiety into the territory of anxiety disorders.

This video is really informative about how a Anxiety Disorder affects the body.  The video talks about the 5 main Anxiety Disorders and how they may affect you.  If you think you may have a Anxiety Disorder watch this video, it could help you.