anxiety is a normal part of life you
might feel anxious when you have a big
test or a meeting with your boss or you
don't have enough money to pay the bills
in your bank account but when anxiety
goes beyond just a temporary fear or
worry when it starts to impact your life
your work your relationships even your
health that's when it becomes a serious
concern if you have anxiety you feel it
the list of physical issues sounds like
the end of a cialis ad if you're taking
anxiety symptoms may include chest pain
muscle tension headaches stomach aches
nausea heart palpitations restlessness
dizziness problems sleeping hot flashes
chills a whole bunch of other thing and
death oh I'm just kidding about that
last one chronic anxiety can be really
bad for your long-term health too it's
been linked to things like heart attacks
and suppressed immune system and that
doesn't even address what's going on in
your head anxiety disorders often have
cognitive distortions cognitive
distortions are irrational clots or
beliefs about ourselves or the world
around us basically it's a fancy word
for worries examples of this might
include things like all-or-nothing
thinking if I don't have time to
everything I might do it today
I'm going to be a total failure and
catastrophizing Oh doh I can't believe
I've made a typo in that email they must
think I'm an idiot these cognitive
distortions can have serious impacts on
behavior as well affecting a person's
day to day life how they interact with
friends or how they manage their job
without treatment anxiety symptoms tend
to become more severe and frequent over
time but don't fret health is out there
contrary to popular belief an anxiety
disorder isn't something you can just
snap out of or ignore it also isn't a
sign of personal weakness or someone
who's unstable anxiety disorders can
affect anyone this stigma against
anxiety disorders keeps people from
seeking help only 1/3 of people
suffering from anxiety get treatment and
people who believe that anxiety is a
choice or even less likely to get help
when they actually need it so how do i
anxiety disorders come about and who's
at risk well there's a popular way of
thinking about anxiety called the
threshold model imagine for a moment a
graph with a normal distribution curve
the y-axis is the number of people in
your population
the x-axis is the predisposition to
anxiety in the general American
population about 20% of people have a
current anxiety disorder that means that
people whose anxiety level crosses the
threshold in this upper 20% will likely
experience an anxiety disorder this
threshold can also change based on how
you change the population for example
anxiety seems somewhat hereditary so if
the population is people who have
parents with anxiety disorders that
threshold goes up to 30% or if the
population is individuals who have
experienced a traumatic event such as
Matt's violence that threshold goes up
to 67% as you can see there's a lot of
factors that can change the threshold so
on an individual basis depending on
genetic predisposition environment and
life experiences the threshold will
change okay so let's say you think you
might have anxiety and you'd like to get
some help now what the first step is
setting up a meeting with a psychiatrist
psychologist or counselor you can
discuss your thoughts and symptoms with
them and they'll determine your
diagnosis then they'll help you
understand it and work with you on
coping with your anxiety there are a lot
of ways to treat anxiety typically the
combination of medication and talk
therapy is considered the most effective
treatment Ally talked about different
medications but today I'm focusing on
the therapy side of things honestly
there's a lot of different therapies
that could be helpful for treating
anxiety but there is one that stands
head and shoulders above the rest with
more than 30 years of compelling
empirical data cognitive behavioral
therapy or CBT CBT focuses on what and
how a person thinks or acts more than
why a person thinks for accidentally to
boil it all down CBT has two goals first
there's cognitive restructuring which
involves the therapist and client
working together to change thinking
patterns for example treatment may focus
on changing cognitive distortions if the
person is able to recognize irrational
thoughts and change them they will be
more able to reduce their anxiety in the
future the second goal is behavioral
activation which involves clients
learning to overcome obstacles to
participate in enjoyable activities for
example exposure therapy involves
exposing a person to their fear without
any
tool danger if a person is scared of
snakes for example you might have a
non-venomous making an enclosed tank
across the room the therapist then helps
the client through what they're feeling
eventually when they become desensitized
to the fear and feel more comfortable
the therapist moves to tank a little
closer until the clients anxiety returns
and then they repeat the process but how
effective is this well for specific
phobias like fear of sharks or
stringbeans
individuals can see an 80% improvement
in symptoms with as little as two to
nine hours of cognitive behavioral
treatment in panic disorder patients be
about sixty to ninety two percent
improvement in symptoms depending on the
length of therapy patients with social
anxiety disorder and most forms of atfd
also see significant long-term
improvement when using exposure and
social skills training overall CBTs
effectiveness is huge at home on your
own there are a lot of coping skills
that help reduce anxiety mostly lots of
things that are good for your self-care
these include building strong
relationships getting lots of sleep
exercise eating well doing fun
activities and meditation if you'd like
to try reducing your anxiety at home
click in the upper right corner for a
guided cognitive behavioral techniques
that relaxes your body and as a result
your mind anxiety is no joke if you
think that you a friend or a family
member is suffering from an anxiety
disorder take a look in the description
for more resources in your area help is
out there and you're not alone so don't
wait thanks for watching this episode of
micro psych if you liked this episode
give me a thumbs up and hit subscribe if
you'd like to catch more videos about
brain diseases and disorders in the
future make sure you head over and check
out Ali's video about the neuroscience
anxiety if you love us as much as we
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tweet me if you want to talk about
anxiety or treatment or therapy and if
you'd like to learn about a particular
condition let us know in the comments
below until next time I'm Micah think
about it
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come on
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