Anxiety
Mervyn Dean, Juan-Diego Harris, Claud Regnard, Jo Hockley in Symptom Relief in Palliative Care, 2018
Supportive measures: Enabling a person to express their feelings and giving the information they need can do much to ease anxiety. Helping the individual to look for links between thoughts and feelings can generate more realistic interpretations. For example, feeling ‘out of control with all that machinery’ can be changed into, ‘It’s good to think all that technology is there to help.’ Similar approaches have been used with visualization and guided imagery.11–14 Simple anxiety management techniques can be helpful, such as distraction or relaxation. Muscle relaxation techniques are best avoided as it can worsen the anxiety of some people who are excessively vigilant of their bodily sensations. Autogenic relaxation (deep relaxation and self-hypnosis) is a better alternative,15 but there is equivocal evidence for its success in anxiety.16 The evidence for reflexology in treating anxiety is conflicting.17,18 Other approaches include hypnosis,19 music therapy20 and aromatherapy.21,22
Mad world-building
Lester D. Friedman, Therese Jones in Routledge Handbook of Health and Media, 2022
OCD is often characterized as an anxiety problem caused by over-activity in the amygdala, that part of the brain concerned with the processing of memory and emotion. It is commonly treated in the same way that anxiety is treated: with antidepressants and cognitive behavioral therapy, both of which can be effective. But, in addition, I believe that OCD has a special relationship with media, morphing and feeding off news stories and cultural memes. It is a post-modern illness, concerned with the internalization of societal rules. The public perception of OCD is often shaped by popular entertainment such as television programs about “OCD Cleaners,” and the phrase, “I’m a bit OCD,” has become a modern cliché, usually indicating the speaker is particular about something or other. The reality of living with the actual condition is the cause of much manifest suffering: a hellish web of virally-proliferating thoughts and propositions which can paralyze the sufferer in agonizing doubt or else drive her to repeat futile physical or mental activities in the hope of satisfying or defeating the entity that seems to control her very soul. It is no wonder, then, that OCD has been historically linked to religion, that those afflicted have worried about demonic possession or that some cartoonists choose to visually embody the condition as a creature, taunting and vexing its miserable host. Comics artists are able to use their inventive graphic skills to relate to others what it is like to live which this particular form of madness.
The Exercise Effect on Mental Health in Older Adults
Henning Budde, Mirko Wegner in The Exercise Effect on Mental Health, 2018
Anxiety is an umbrella term covering several different forms of abnormal and pathological fear. Anxiety is typified by several symptoms depending on the degree of severity including emotional (worry, self-doubt, apprehension), behavioral (nervousness, trembling, tics) and physiological (hyperventilation, increases in heart rate, blood pressure, muscle tension, perspiration, stress hormone levels) conspicuities (ICD-10; Knapen & Vancampfort 2013). Anxiety disorders can vary from mild discomfort to panic disorder. Anxiety which only occurs in response to specific circumstances in which a person perceives a lack of control or uncertainty has been defined as state anxiety, whereas a person’s predisposition to become anxious across many situations has been termed trait anxiety (Taylor 2000). While most studies including older adults focus on the effects of physical activity on trait anxiety levels, less research has been performed for the effects of physical activity on state anxiety in older adults.
Pharmacotherapy of Down syndrome
Published in Expert Opinion on Pharmacotherapy, 2018
Michelle L. Palumbo, Christopher J. McDougle
The pharmacological treatment of anxiety disorders in individuals with DS has received essentially no attention in the medical literature. In our experience, however, symptoms of anxiety are quite common and often interfering for these individuals. Patients may demonstrate physical signs of anxiety such as flushing, trembling, nail biting/picking, and pacing. They may also seem irritable and repeatedly seek reassurance from caregivers, often expressed as repetitive questioning. More verbal individuals can describe excessive fears and worries. Anxiety can also cause prominent sleep disturbances, result in an increase in stereotypic, repetitive behaviors, and when severe, manifest as paranoia-like symptoms. There have been several case reports and small open-label trials that have looked at the effectiveness of buspirone, a serotonin1A partial agonist approved for the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder, in individuals with ID and other neurodevelopmental disorders, including ASD [51]. For individuals with DS and comorbid anxiety, we generally begin with a trial of buspirone, starting at a dosage of 2.5 mg/day and increasing weekly by this amount to a target dosage of 15 mg twice daily or lower. We have found buspirone to be quite effective and well tolerated for treating anxiety in patients with DS.
Managing anxiety and uncertainty: applying anxiety/uncertainty management theory to university health professionals and students’ communication
Published in Journal of Communication in Healthcare, 2021
This sub-theme was employed as a strategy before and during participants’ interactions with university health professionals. Taking a deep breath, listening to music, and working out more were the most common relaxing techniques some participants used to calm down as their anxiety and uncertainty management strategy. These techniques were used before their interactions with university health professionals. Examples of such responses included: ‘If I get nervous, I take deep breaths’, ‘I just relaxed and listened to music with my headphones and trusted they would help me’, ‘I tried to find a breathing pattern that would calm me down’, ‘I work out a lot and hung out with friends’. Interestingly, one participant's response seems to confirm the notion that anxiety and uncertainty are inextricably related: ‘I usually just get quiet when I am uncertain about something because [when] I get nervous they will think that I am dumb’.
A gendered account of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA’s) “Singleness of Purpose”
Published in Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 2018
Psychiatrists tended to overlook symptoms of AUD (alcoholism) and instead saw women as emotionally needy. In fact, even if the symptoms of nervousness were attributed to abuse of alcohol, the treatment was the same—prescription medication. This medical disposition reflects a gendered view of women in the 1940s and 1950s as the “weaker sex,” and this view was legitimated as medical authorities reinforced this form of sexism. For instance, a medical opinion originally published in the Ann Arbor, Michigan, Tribune and reprinted in the January 1946 Grapevine reads, “Psychiatrists are of the opinion that women’s nerves and brains degenerate more rapidly with constant drinking because of a more sensitive nervous system” (Editor, 1946, para. 2). Women took on this label as well as manipulated this label to the same end—dual addiction to alcohol and other drugs. Even women employed within the medical profession were subject to confounding symptoms of alcohol and other drug abuse. For example, a 49-year-old medical technician describes how she began to use sedatives to help with symptoms of alcoholism and having access to medications, she quickly became addicted, substituting one for the other. She describesL At the hospital, I found it very convenient to help myself to the barbiturates in order to overcome the terrific hangovers and shakes that were now happening every time I took a drink. I did not take to morning drinking because it was easier to slip a pill, and cheaper since I stole the pills (J. D., 1957, para. 4).
Related Knowledge Centers
- Anticipation
- Emotion
- Fatigue
- Rumination
- Somatic Anxiety
- Worry
- Exaggeration
- Fear
- Threat
- Fight-Or-Flight Response