Anxiety and Behavioral Health Services
We want to help!
The “Alarm
System”
In
general, you can think of anxiety as your body’s built-in “alarm
system,” designed to protect you from potential dangers. Your alarm system
includes a “cognitive” part (that is, your thoughts—riveting
your attention to a possible danger), a physiological part (which you might experience
as shortness of breath, increased heart rate, sweaty palms, trembling, feeling
lightheaded, etc.), and a behavioral part (that is, trying to avoid or escape
from danger). Everyone experiences anxiety from time to time and it motivates
us to protect ourselves from danger.
However, sometimes anxiety becomes chronic (as in frequent worry),
or extremely intense (as in particular fears, or during panic attacks).
Anxiety can be problematic
if it causes intense distress to the person experiencing it, or if it interferes
significantly with one’s life. For example, if anxiety leads a person to
avoid meeting new people, or avoid traveling, or avoid taking a promotion, or
avoid any activities in which s/he wishes s/he could participate, it may be interfering
with his or her living life to the fullest. If anxiety is interfering with your
happiness
or functioning, treatment can help!
Here are some key elements of different
kinds of problematic anxiety:
Panic Attacks: Episodes
of intense fear that reach a peak in ten minutes or less and involve
strong body sensations such as heart racing, shortness of breath,
light-headedness, derealization, etc.
Panic Disorder: Repeated
panic attacks that occur out of the blue (without warning) and
lead a person to fear the next attack or its imagined consequences
(for example, heart attack or fainting).
Agoraphobia: Avoidance
of any situations in which escape or obtaining help might be difficult
or embarrassing if a panic attack were to occur. In its most severe
form, people become afraid to leave home at all. Often, driving
(especially on freeways) is avoided or endured with distress.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Excessive,
persistent worry about unlikely bad things that could occur.
Social Phobia: Discomfort
in social interactions with other people due to fear of making
mistakes or being judged negatively.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Inability to stop thinking certain
fearful thoughts (for example, about germs or violence) and performing anxiety-reducing
behaviors (for example, handwashing and checking for safety).
Specific Phobias: Fears
of particular insects, animals, natural disasters, situations (such
as flying, heights, elevators), or blood/injections.
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Repeatedly
re-experiencing a traumatic event that actually occurred (such
as an act of violence or a natural disaster) through nightmares,
flashbacks, or periods of intense fear.
Health Anxiety: Sometimes
called hypochondriasis, health anxiety includes distressing fear
that mundane physical symptoms (such as a headache or dizziness)
indicate that one is suffering from a severe medical condition, even when
medical testing or examination shows no evidence of this.
