NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Anxiety

Anxiety is a physiological state characterized by cognitive, somatic, emotional, and behavioral components^[1]. These components combine to create the feelings that we typically recognize as fear, apprehension, or worry. Anxiety is often accompanied by physical sensations such as heart palpitations, nausea, chest pain, shortness of breath, stomach aches, or headache. The cognitive component entails expectation of a diffuse and certain danger. Somatically the body prepares the organism to deal with threat (known as an emergency reaction): blood pressure and heart rate are increased, sweating is increased, bloodflow to the major muscle groups is increased, and immune and digestive system functions are inhibited. Externally, somatic signs of anxiety may include pale skin, sweating, trembling, and pupillary dilation. Emotionally, anxiety causes a sense of dread or panic and physically causes nausea, diarrhea, and chills. Behaviorally, both voluntary and involuntary behaviors may arise directed at escaping or avoiding the source of anxiety and often maladaptive, being most extreme in anxiety disorders. However, anxiety is not always pathological or maladaptive: it is a common emotion along with fear, anger, sadness, and happiness, and it has a very important function in relation to survival. Cognitive The scientific study of how people obtain, retrieve, store and manipulate information. ... The term somatic refers to the body, as distinct from some other entity, such as the mind. ... Look up Emotion in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Behavior (U.S.) or behaviour (U.K.) refers to the actions or reactions of an object or organism, usually in relation to the environment. ... For other uses, see Fear (disambiguation). ... We dont have an article called Worry Start this article Search for Worry in. ... A palpitation is an awareness of the beating of the heart, whether it is too slow, too fast, irregular, or at its normal frequency; brought on by overexertion, adrenaline, alcohol, disease (e. ... For other uses, see Nausea (disambiguation). ... In medicine, chest pain is a symptom of a number of conditions and is generally considered a medical emergency, unless the patient is a known angina pectoris sufferer and the symptoms are familiar (appearing at exertion and resolving at rest, known as stable angina). When the chest pain is not... Dyspnea (Latin dyspnoea, Greek dyspnoia from dyspnoos - short of breath) or shortness of breath (SOB) is perceived difficulty breathing or pain on breathing. ... Abdominal pain can be one of the symptoms associated with transient disorders or serious disease. ... Tension headaches, which were renamed tension-type headaches by the International Headache Society in 1988, are the most common type of primary headaches. ... A sphygmomanometer, a device used for measuring arterial pressure. ... Heart rate is the frequency of the cardiac cycle. ... A scanning electron microscope image of a single neutrophil (yellow), engulfing anthrax bacteria (orange). ... For the industrial process, see anaerobic digestion. ... Mydriasis is an excessive dilation of the pupil due to disease or drugs. ... Anxiety disorder is a blanket term covering several different forms of abnormal, pathological anxiety, fears, phobias. ...

Neural circuitry involving the amygdala and hippocampus is thought to underlie anxiety^[2]. When confronted with unpleasant and potentially harmful stimuli such as foul odors or tastes, PET-scans show increased bloodflow in the amygdala.^[3]^[4] In these studies, the participants also reported moderate anxiety. This might indicate that anxiety is a protective mechanism designed to prevent the organism from engaging in potentially harmful behaviors. Look up Amygdala in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For other uses, see Hippocampus (disambiguation). ... Image of a typical positron emission tomography (PET) facility Positron emission tomography (PET) is a nuclear medicine medical imaging technique which produces a three-dimensional image or map of functional processes in the body. ...

[edit] Symptoms

Although anxiety attacks are not experienced by every anxiety sufferer, they are a common symptom. Anxiety attacks usually come without warning, and although the fear is generally irrational, the perceived danger is very real. A person experiencing an anxiety attack will often feel as if they are about to die or pass out. An editor has expressed a concern that the subject of the article does not satisfy the notability guideline or one of the following guidelines for inclusion on Wikipedia: Biographies, Books, Companies, Fiction, Music, Neologisms, Numbers, Web content, or several proposals for new guidelines. ...

Emotional symptoms of anxiety include a fear (such as that one has a mental illness, disease or will die), they may feel the need to avoid certain stressful situations or social situations due to fear of embarrassment. There may be considerable confusion and irritability when the anxiety is taking place. Physical symptoms include hot flushes, chest pain, sudden tiredness, headaches, shortness of breath, problems digesting and nausea. A hot flush (sometimes hot flash or night sweat) is a symptom of menopause and changing hormone levels which typically expresses itself at night as periods of intense heat with sweating and rapid heartbeat and may typically last from two to thirty minutes on each occasion. ... In medicine, chest pain is a symptom of a number of conditions and is generally considered a medical emergency, unless the patient is a known angina pectoris sufferer and the symptoms are familiar (appearing at exertion and resolving at rest, known as stable angina). When the chest pain is not... Fatigue is a feeling of excessive tiredness or lethargy, with a desire to rest, perhaps to sleep. ... Tension headaches, which were renamed tension-type headaches by the International Headache Society in 1988, are the most common type of primary headaches. ... Breathing transports oxygen into the body and carbon dioxide out of the body. ... For other uses, see Nausea (disambiguation). ...

[edit] Theories

[edit] Two factor theory of anxiety

Sigmund Freud recognized anxiety as a "signal of danger" and a cause of "defensive behavior". He believed we acquire anxious feelings through classical conditioning and traumatic experiences.^{[citation needed]} Image File history File links Emblem-important. ... Sigmund Freud (IPA: ), born Sigismund Schlomo Freud (May 6, 1856 â€“ September 23, 1939), was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology. ...

We maintain anxiety through operant conditioning; when we see or encounter something associated with a previous traumatic experience, anxious feelings resurface. We feel temporarily relieved when we avoid/remove ourselves from situations which make us anxious/fearful, known as 'negative-reinforcement', but this only increases anxious feelings the next time we are in the same position, and we will want to escape the situation again and therefore will not make any progress against the anxiety, only intensifying the emotions or 'fear.' Phobias can be developed this way, as well as cured using the opposite 'positive-reinforcement' whereby instead of removal from the anxiety causing situation (which acts as a 'reward' [negative-reinforcement]) something positive can be added to the situation instead to act as a reward, like actually facing your fear and coming away from it safely. This is known as positive reinforcement of a negative situation.

[edit] Types of anxiety

[edit] Existential anxiety

Theologians like Paul Tillich and psychologists like Sigmund Freud have characterized anxiety as the reaction to what Tillich called, "The trauma of nonbeing." That is, the human comes to realize that there is a point at which he or she might cease to be (die), and their encounter with reality becomes characterized by anxiety. Religion, according to both Tillich and Freud, then becomes a carefully crafted coping mechanism in response to this anxiety since they redefine death as the end of only the corporal part of human personal existence, assuming an immortal soul. What then becomes of this soul and through what criteria is the cardinal difference of various religious faiths. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... An existential crisis is a state of panic or feeling of intense psychological discomfort about questions of existence. ... Theology finds its scholars pursuing the understanding of and providing reasoned discourse of religion, spirituality and God or the gods. ... Paul Johannes Tillich (August 20, 1886 â€“ October 22, 1965) was a German-American theologian and Christian existentialist philosopher. ... Sigmund Freud (IPA: ), born Sigismund Schlomo Freud (May 6, 1856 â€“ September 23, 1939), was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology. ... For other uses, see Soul (disambiguation). ... This article discusses faith in a religious context. ...

Philosophical ruminations are a part of this condition, and this is part of obsessive-compulsive disorder. They are typically about sex and religion or death. However, truly rational philosophical thinking is usually driven by a desire for a rational understanding of Ultimate Reality, rather than a desire to avoid death. In philosophy, Ultimate Reality is the absolute nature of all things. ...

According to Viktor Frankl, author of Man's Search for Meaning, when faced with extreme mortal dangers the very basic of all human wishes is to find a meaning of life to combat this "trauma of nonbeing" as death is near and to succumb to it (even by suicide) seems like a way out. Viktor Emil Frankl, M.D., Ph. ... Viktor Frankls 1946 book Mans Search for Meaning chronicles his experiences as a concentration camp inmate and describes his psychotherapeutic method of finding a reason to live. ... This article is about the concept of the meaning of life. ... For other uses, see Suicide (disambiguation). ...

The "father" of existentialism, Soren Kierkegaard, regarded all humans to be born into despair by default (in The Sickness Unto Death). Such despair was created by having a false conception of the self. He regarded the mortal self which can exist relatively, and therefore be born or die, as the false self. The true self was the relationship of self to God (the Absolute, or Ultimate Reality), rather than to any relative object.

[edit] Test anxiety

Test anxiety is the uneasiness, apprehension, or nervousness felt by students who have a fear of failing an exam. Students suffering from test anxiety may experience any of the following: the association of grades with personal worth, embarrassment by a teacher, taking a class that is beyond their ability, fear of alienation from parents or friends, time pressures, or feeling a loss of control. Emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and physical components can all be present in test anxiety. Sweating, dizziness, headaches, racing heartbeats, nausea, fidgeting, and drumming on a desk are all common. An optimal level of arousal is necessary to best complete a task such as an exam; however, when the anxiety or level of arousal exceeds that optimum, it results in a decline in performance. Because test anxiety hinges on fear of negative evaluation, debate exists as to whether test anxiety is itself a unique anxiety disorder or whether it is a specific type of social phobia. In 2006, approximately 49% of high school students were reportedly experiencing this condition.

While the term test anxiety refers specifically to students, many adults share the same experience with regard to their career or profession. The fear of failing a task and being negatively evaluated for it can have a similarly negative effect on the adult.

[edit] Stranger anxiety

Anxiety when meeting or interacting with unknown people is a common stage of development in young people. Stranger anxiety is a form of distress that young people experience when exposed to people unfamiliar to them. ... In psychology, socialization is the process by which children and others adopt the behavior patterns of the culture that surrounds them. ...

So-called "stranger anxiety" in younger people is not a phobia in the classic sense; rather it is a developmentally appropriate fear by young children of those who do not share a 'loved-one', caretaker or parenting role. In adults, an excessive fear of other people is not a developmentally common stage.

[edit] Anxiety in palliative care

Some research has strongly suggested that treating anxiety in cancer patients improves their quality of life. The treatment generally consists of counseling, relaxation techniques or pharmacologically with benzodiazepines. Cancer is a class of diseases or disorders characterized by uncontrolled division of cells and the ability of these to spread, either by direct growth into adjacent tissue through invasion, or by implantation into distant sites by metastasis (where cancer cells are transported through the bloodstream or lymphatic system). ...

[edit] Natural treatments

Kava root is an effective natural treatment for short-term relief of mild anxiety.^[5] Due to recent findings regarding side effects of prolonged used of Kava-Kava, some individuals have turned to other natural herbs such as valerian (herb) root, Chamomile, orange peel and peppermint, for example.^{[citation needed]} Binomial name G.Forst. ... Binomial name L. & Maillefer Valerian (Valeriana officinalis, Valerianaceae) is a hardy perennial flowering plant, with heads of sweetly scented pink or white flowers. ... Chamomile flowers The name Chamomile or Camomile is ambiguous and can refer to several distinct species. ...

[edit] See also

Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Wikiquote is one of a family of wiki-based projects run by the Wikimedia Foundation, running on MediaWiki software. ... An anxiolytic is a drug prescribed for the treatment of symptoms of anxiety. ... Anxiety disorder is a blanket term covering several different forms of abnormal, pathological anxiety, fears, phobias. ... Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is an anxiety disorder that is characterized by excessive, uncontrollable and often irrational worry about everyday things, which is disproportionate to the actual source of worry. ... Hypochondria (sometimes hypochondriasis) is the unfounded belief that one is suffering from a serious illness. ... Panic attacks are sudden, discrete periods of intense anxiety, fear and discomfort that are associated with a variety of somatic and cognitive symptoms[1]. The onset of these episodes is typically abrupt, and may have no obvious trigger. ... Panic Disorder is a psychiatric condition characterized by recurring panic attacks in combination with significant behavioral change or at least a month of ongoing worry about the implications or concern about having other attacks. ... For other things named OCD, see OCD (disambiguation). ... The Anxiety Disorders Association of America (ADAA) is the only U.S. nonprofit organization solely dedicated to increasing awareness and improving the diagnosis, treatment, and cure of anxiety disorders. ...

[edit] References

Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wiktionary (a portmanteau of wiki and dictionary) is a multilingual, Web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in over 151 languages. ... A symptom is a manifestation of a disease, indicating the nature of the disease, which is noticed by the patient. ... In medicine, a sign is a feature of disease as detected by the doctor during physical examination of a patient. ... Look up Cognition in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... In psychology and the cognitive sciences, perception is the process of acquiring, interpreting, selecting, and organizing sensory information. ... In psychology and common terminology, emotion is the language of a persons internal state of being, normally based in or tied to their internal (physical) and external (social) sensory feeling. ... Behavior or behaviour refers to the actions or reactions of an object or organism, usually in relation to the environment. ... // R00-R99 - Symptoms, signs and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified (R00-R09) Symptoms and signs involving the circulatory and respiratory systems (R00) Abnormalities of heart beat (R000) Tachycardia, unspecified (R001) Bradycardia, unspecified (R002) Palpitations (R008) Other and unspecified abnormalities of heart beat (R01) Cardiac murmurs and other... Somnolence (or drowsiness) is a state of near-sleep, a strong desire for sleep, or sleeping for unusually long periods. ... For other uses, see Coma (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Amnesia (disambiguation). ... Anterograde amnesia is a form of amnesia, or memory loss, in which new events are not transferred from short-term memory to long-term memory. ... Retrograde amnesia is a form of amnesia where someone will be unable to recall events that occurred before the onset of amnesia. ... Many different terms are often used to describe what is collectively known as dizziness. ... For other uses, see Vertigo. ... Olfaction (also known as olfactics) refers to the sense of smell. ... Anosmia is the lack of olfaction, or a loss of the ability to smell. ... This page is a candidate to be moved to Wiktionary. ... For the social and aesthetic aspects of taste, see taste (sociology). ... Ageusia (pronounced ay-GOO-see-uh) is the loss of taste functions of the tongue, particularly the inability to detect sweetness, sourness, bitterness, and saltiness. ... Parageusia is the medical term for a bad taste in the mouth. ...

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