Achieve Now Blog

The definition of Generalised Anxiety is excessive, uncontrollable and often irrational worry about everyday things that is disproportionate to the actual source of worry. [1]
Anxiety is strong irrational fear of the future. People with anxiety tend to see events in the future resulting in a disastrous or undesirable way.
Women are two to three times more likely to suffer from generalized anxiety disorder than men, although this finding appears to be restricted to only developed countries, the spread of GAD is somewhat equal in developing nations.

There are specific anxieties as well like social anxiety or stage or performance anxiety the range of specific anxieties is wide. Anxiety is also linked to Panic attacks and Phobias.

here are some prevalence rates from around the world:
• Australia: 3 percent of adults[3]
• Canada: Between 3-5 percent of adults[4]
• Italy: 2.9 percent[5]
• Taiwan: 0.4 percent[5]
• United States: approx. 3.1 percent of people age 18 and over in a given year (9.5 million)[2]

Generalized anxiety disorder has been linked to disrupted functional connectivity of the amygdala (the part of the brain that is associated with emotional response it’s part of the limbic system which is the more premetive area of the brain which developed to manage fight or flight circuitry which is an evolutionary necessity for reptiles as well as humans and its processing of fear and anxiety). Sensory information enters the amgydala through the nuclei of the basolateral complex (consisting of lateral, basal, and accessory basal nuclei). The basolateral complex processes sensory related fear memories and communicate their threat importance to memory and sensory processing elsewhere in the brain. In those with general anxiety disorder these connections functionally seem to be less distinct and there is greater gray matter in the central nucleus. In some of the anxiety disorders there seems to be by pass of the concious rational part of the brain activating the amygdala and creating sometimes the flight and fight response (panic attacks).

How to Deal with Anxiety Naturally?

Even with GAD there will be a list of things that create anxiety. Since people with anxiety are used to imagine everything going wrong in the future the way to overcome anxiety is to visualise whatever it is that you are anxious about as completing successfuly. You need to do it with everything that makes you feel anxious and after you do it a few times the mind will generalise it and it will come naturally.
I teach my clients a specific Time Line Therapy™ Technique that makes this process easy. With Time Line Therapy™ we will also eliminate fear from the unconcious mind since people with anxiety have alot of fear from the past that has been created by certain events that were perceived as threat to the subconcious and the reaction is created as a mechanism of protection even though the threat does not exist any more. Hypnosis is also very effective to in dealing with anxiety research shows that while a person is under hypnosis the level of activity of the amygdala goes down and it allows the mind to function to a higher capacity and also allows the body to heal itself.

If you want to learn more or discuss any issues with Gema please submit your information via the contact form and Gema will call you for a short phone consultation.

Please submit any questions you may have in regards to this blog or any other issues that are of interest, below, and Gema will attempt to answer them in the next blog:

References:

1. “Anxiety Disorders”, National Institute of Mental Health. Accessed 28 May 2008.
2. “The Numbers Count”, National Institute of Mental Health. Accessed 28 May 2007.
3. “Relating the burden of anxiety and depression to effectiveness of treatment”, World Health Organization.
4. Canadian Network for Mood and Anxiety Treatment
5. eMedicine – Anxiety Disorders : Article Excerpt by William R Yates
6. Cameron, Alasdair (2004). Crash Course Psychiatry. Elsevier Ltd. ISBN 0-7234-3340-8.
7. Kendler KS, Neale MC, Kessler RC, et al. Generalized anxiety disorder in women. A population-based twin study. Archives of General Psychiatry, 1992; 49(4): 267-72.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 22nd, 2010 at 10:19 pm and is filed under Anxiety and Phobias.