Anxiety is an essential part of the human condition. Anxiety plays a role in preparing us for action and avoiding risky situations. We all use anxiety to ready our minds and bodies for the task ahead, whatever it may be.
However, this evolved mechanism to motivate and protect us can grow out of control. Normal worry and apprehension can morph into debilitating anxiety disorders and nervous conditions. We begin to focus on problems while neglecting solutions.
In fact, behaviors seen in many mental disorders involve high anxiety, panic, obsessions, compulsions, and despair. These disorders are psychological in nature and involve exaggerated fears and beliefs that are out of proportion to the actual situation or danger we face.
What is anxiety?
It is estimated that in America alone, around 20 million people suffer from an anxiety disorder. There are many anxiety disorders. The most common is social anxiety disorder, also called social phobia.
That disorder affects over 5 million people, closely followed by PTSD and general anxiety disorder.
Around one in 30 to 50 people suffer from OCD and around 1 in 10 people have a specific phobia.
This list does not include shyness, self-consciousness, and other nervous conditions involving anxiety. These disorders may work in the same way but are not severe enough to warrant a diagnosis. For example, many people are shy enough to avoid certain situations. Avoiding social situations is particularly common when someone feels nervous and uncomfortable in the presence of other people, but shy people can still function socially when they need to.
Types of anxiety disorder
Generalized anxiety disorder or GAD is characterized by long-lasting exaggerated and unrealistic worry about many things. It could be, for example, health or family and self-safety, finances, work, and the chance of accidents. This is usually accompanied by physical anxiety symptoms such as trembling, being on edge, and body aches.
Panic disorders are characterized by regular attacks of panic, for no apparent reason. These scary episodes involve chest pain, heart palpitations, trembling, sweating, and a fear of having a heart attack.
There are also reported cases of fear of dying or losing control.
Phobias could occur as specific phobias, involving fear of a category of objects or dogs, heights, snakes, or sometimes more generalized fears that occur in many situations. An example is agoraphobia, the fear of going outdoors or going to places where escape or relief from a panic attack would be difficult. Another example is social phobia or social anxiety disorder. That is the fear of situations where we have to do things in front of others and in which they could judge, ridicule, or reject us.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder or OCD involves performing routines or rituals that are known as compulsions. It could manifest as obsessive hand washing, done to relieve the anxiety caused by recurring thoughts known as obsessions. OCD can also cause a fear of being contaminated or contaminating others, along with anxiety and panic.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD is an anxiety disorder that strikes some people who have lived through traumatic events. People with PTSD re-experience or relive traumatic events through such things as nightmares or flashbacks. These symptoms can lead to avoiding similar situations or places. Emotional numbing and physical anxiety symptoms are also common disorders.
Depression is actually not classified as an anxiety disorder, but many types of depression involve high anxiety. Here, the person bears the heavy weight of responsibility for negative events. A person with depression feels that they have no hope of coping with life, and physical symptoms of anxiety can be present as well. Depression is a major additional diagnosis with GAD, panic disorder, and OCD. Similar ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving are seen across all anxiety disorders.
All anxiety disorders involve a state of higher than average physiological arousal, nervousness, and greater alertness, shown by heightened senses and a higher than normal resting heart-beat rate.
GAD and OCD both involve self-perpetuating thoughts relating to attempts to cope and gain control, while phobias and OCD entail panic when confronted by a feared object or thought. Feelings of inability to cope with negative events occur with anxiety and depression.
However, people who suffer from depression feel responsible for the events while those with anxiety generally do not. Panic disorder, phobias, and PTSD all involve some form of avoidance.
These range from the overwhelming urge to escape in phobias to the cognitive avoidance strategies used in panic disorders and the emotional numbing are common in PTSD to avoid painful feelings. In both social phobia and agoraphobia, the fear is increased in places where we feel trapped. For example, it is fear that occurs while waiting in queues or in the hairdressers and dentist’s chair. All disorders involve feelings of not being in control. Particularly, panic disorder and agoraphobia where exaggerated fears of losing control are prominent. Almost all anxiety disorders are preceded by negative life experiences. From the short duration, high-intensity traumatic events associated with PTSD to more prolonged long-term stressors involved in many disorders.
Symptoms of anxiety disorders
The most common symptom at the start of many disorders is usually a period of nervousness. This symptom simply reflects the ways in which humans have evolved to deal with stressful or dangerous situations. Almost everyone displays behaviors associated with these problems at some time in their lives, but half of the population experiences frequent but irrational fears.
However, normal worries and fears are not severe enough to be classed as phobias or anxiety disorders. Public speaking and meeting new people are common fears among adults, and these are classified as social phobias. Many people fear walking into crowded places; the literal meaning of agoraphobia is fear of the marketplace. The majority of us perform checking, cleaning, tidying and ordering rituals daily, but not to the extent of OCD. Although anxiety is a part of all our lives, not everyone develops an anxiety disorder.
What is the fear of death?
Defined as the fear of death or dead things, each year this surprisingly common phobia causes countless people needless distress in life. To add insult to an already distressing condition, you can expect therapy for fear of death therapies to take months or years.
Sometimes therapies even require the patient to be exposed repeatedly to their fear. We believe that not only is this totally unnecessary, but it will also often make the condition worse and it is particularly cruel as fear of death can be eliminated with the right methods and just 24 hours of commitment by the phobic individual.
A fear of death is known by a number of names such as necrophobia, fear of death, and fear of dead things being the most common. The problem often significantly influences the quality of a person’s life. It can cause panic attacks and keep people apart from loved ones or business associates.
Symptoms of this disorder typically include shortness of breath, rapid breathing, irregular heartbeat, sweating, nausea, and overall feelings of dread. It is definitely true everyone experiences fear of death in their own way and may have different symptoms. Though a variety of potent drugs is often prescribed for fear of death, side effects or withdrawal symptoms can be severe. Moreover, drugs do not cure fear of death or any other phobia, but at best, they temporarily suppress the symptoms through chemical interaction. The good news is that the modern, fast, drug-free processes of the CTRN phobia clinic could train your mind to feel completely different about death or dead things. Some therapies could eliminate the fear so it never haunts you again.
Cost of living with fear of death
It is important to understand that a person living with fear of death has real costs to their health, career or school, and to family life. Avoiding the issue indefinitely would mean resigning these people to living in fear, missing out on priceless life experiences big and small, living a life that is just a shadow of what it will be when the problem is gone. For anyone earning a living, the financial toll of this phobia is incalculable because living with fear means you can never concentrate fully and give your best. These people commonly lost opportunities, have poor performance or grades and promotions that pass you by. Fear of death will likely cost their tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of their lifetime, let alone the cost to health and quality of life.
Read More: Panic attacks and anxiety
What is the cause of fear of death?
Like all fears and phobias, fear of death is created by the unconscious mind as a protective mechanism where in some point in the past, there was likely an event linking death or dead things and emotional trauma. Whilst the original catalyst may have been a real-life scare of some kind, the condition can also be triggered by myriad, benign events like movies, TV, or seeing someone else experience trauma. However, so long as the negative association is powerful enough, the unconscious mind thinks that whole thing is very dangerous. The fear of death clinic at the CTRN phobia clinic is entirely result-focused. Therefore, you are charged for the result you want as freedom from fear of death, regardless of how long it takes. The process of therapy usually requires no more than ten hours. In exceptional cases, the people who could help you can achieve a favorable result in two to three hours. However, because we guarantee the outcome, they will work with you for as long as it takes; five minutes, five hours, or five weeks. They work highly effectively by telephone, which allows their clients far more flexibility in scheduling appointments, and the results are every bit as good as meeting in person.