Understanding Generalized Anxiety Disorder -- The Basics

What Is Anxiety?

Normal life includes some anxiety and fear. In a stressful situation, your brain triggers a flood of chemicals into your bloodstream. Your heart beats faster; your breath becomes shallow and rapid; your muscles tense; your mind goes on full alert. It's all part of your inborn reaction to a threat: You're ready to flee or fight.

Sometimes anxiety and fear linger on and on. The feelings can be overwhelming. When they interfere with normal activities, there's a problem. Doctors call this kind of problem a disorder. Millions of Americans suffer from anxiety disorders. There are five different kinds.

This article deals with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Other articles will deal with other forms of anxiety disorder: obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), panic disorder and phobias.

A person who worries excessively and unrealistically about most things for six months or more may have GAD. It's not the worries themselves that are unrealistic, but the extent of the worrying. For example, it may not be unrealistic to worry that if your spouse is a few minutes late getting home, there may have been an accident. But it's a problem if this causes a rising sense of terror and an inability to stop fretting and thinking about awful possibilities.

Life is stressful. It's a good idea for everyone to learn some relaxation techniques. Different things work for different people. What doesn't work is self- medication with alcohol or drugs. In the not-too-long run, substance abuse brings on even more anxiety.

What Causes It?

Anxiety can be caused by a recognizable stress -- such as an accident, a death in the family, or the loss of a job. In time, people usually adjust to these stressful events. People with GAD may find that their symptoms get worse during stressful events.

Generalized anxiety disorder may run in families. It usually begins at an earlier age and symptoms may manifest themselves more slowly than in most other anxiety disorders.

Some theorists believe that anxieties stem from buried memories of some unhappy or frightening part of childhood. These memories lurk below the surface of the conscious mind and revealing their presence in anxiety. Others say that anxieties arise when a situation stimulates feelings that a person believes to be unacceptable. Anxiety then steps in. It overrides feelings that the person fears or doesn't know how to handle.