Generalized Anxiety Disorder is when we have excessive worry or anxiety that last for at least 6 months. This anxiety and worry can lead us to feeling restless or on edge, easily fatigued, have difficulty concentrating, irritable, tense muscles, and struggle to get a good night sleep.This anxiety and worry can lead us to feeling restless or on edge, easily fatigued, have difficulty concentrating, irritable, tense muscles, and struggle to get a good night sleep.This anxiety and worry can lead us to feeling restless or on edge, easily fatigued, have difficulty concentrating, irritable, tense muscles, and struggle to get a good night sleep.In adults, this disorder tends to be focused around worry associated with health, finances, and everyday routine life circumstances. In children, this tends to present more as worry about competence (tests and assessments) and the quality of their performance (sports games, musical performances, etc). Although the median age of onset is 30 years old, those who they spoke to stated that they had felt anxious their entire lives.The good news is that there are many treatment options!
First is talk therapy and more specifically CBT. This helps us challenge those automatic/faulty thoughts so that we can slowly get back to doing the things we used to do without worry or anxiety. This can take time and lots of therapy homework, but they find CBT to be the best therapy approach.Secondly, medication. I know not everyone is open to trying medication, but they find that CBT with medication gives us the best chance of recovery. Usually, SSRI’s or SNRI’s (otherwise known as anti-depressants) are used first. If those don’t help at certain intense moments, they may prescribe a benzodiazepine to be used only in acute situations due to its habit forming tendencies. So please be careful if you are prescribed these and do not use them every day.Lastly, there are some lifestyle changes you can make. Eating regularly and from a well-balanced diet can help. Also, cutting back on coffee and alcohol can help us sleep more soundly and get rid of any symptoms that may feel like anxiety. Getting exercise and taking time to meditate can help us better manage any of the anxiety symptoms we struggle with.I hope you found this helpful! GAD is very common and something many people struggle with daily. The sooner we get help for this the better, so please share! You never know who it could encourage.
I’m Kati Morton, a licensed therapist making Mental Health videos!
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