Although anxiety is a normal feeling in stressful situations, it can become disruptive in your everyday life when persistent and overwhelming. Indeed, your constant worrying can lead to the development of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), which is common in both adults and children. By recognizing early signs of the disorder, you may be able to lessen its impact and gain back control of your life.
Understanding Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Despite having various symptoms, GAD centers around excessive worry over numerous aspects of one’s life. Not only that but this anxiety remains consistent over time, even when you’re free from stressors and triggers. Due to GAD, you may struggle with overthinking and pessimism, while perceiving ordinary things as threatening.
Likewise, feelings such as indecisiveness and fear can make handling uncertainty extremely challenging as you’d be too concerned about making the wrong choices. Primarily, GAD makes it hard to let go of your worries, and constantly puts you on edge, causing restlessness and an inability to relax. Moreover, you may find concentrating just as difficult, feeling your mind blanking out during important tasks.
Symptoms of GAD
Physical symptoms of GAD consist of fatigue, muscle aches or tension, and even sleeping disorders like insomnia. Similarly, you may tremble and twitch a lot while being easily startled. If struggling with excessive nervousness, you can develop various issues such as excessive sweating or nausea. More than that, GAD can lead to digestive problems including irritable bowel syndrome and diarrhea. You may even experience irritability due to chronic stress, causing both emotional and physical symptoms that interfere with your daily life.
Even when you have a handle on your anxieties, you may feel they don’t have a direct or obvious cause. This feeling may lead you to develop a sense of impending doom that drives you to become intensely concerned for your safety or your loved ones. Not only can your worries shift from one problem to another, they may evolve as you age, further complicating your stress management.
GAD in Youth
Children and teenagers with GAD may share similar worries as adults, however, they may have different concerns. Specifically, these young people tend to worry about their performance in school, sports, or even work. They may even fear catastrophic events that threaten them, their peers, and loved ones such as school shootings or natural disasters. GAD may turn them into perfectionists who redo tasks over and over again until they’re exactly right or force them to conform to fit in and get reassurance. Lacking confidence is also common in youth struggling with GAD leading them to avoid social situations altogether, which can make attending school a challenge.
Seeking Help for Intense Anxiety
Overall, women get diagnosed with GAD more than men with several factors increasing the risk of development. For instance, personality traits like negativity and shyness can make you more prone to anxiety. Genetics also increases your chances of getting GAD as it tends to run in families. Other common risk factors are childhood traumatic events and life experiences, specifically ones that change your life significantly. Lastly, dealing with coexisting mental health disorders or chronic medical conditions also increases your likelihood of developing the condition.
While some form of anxiety is normal, you may need to seek a healthcare professional when it begins to disrupt your life. Sadly, GAD can significantly impact your relationships, work, and other aspects of your life, if not treated properly. That’s why you should seek help especially if you struggle with depression, alcohol and drug abuse, or other underlying mental illnesses. Seek emergency treatment if you’re experiencing suicidal thoughts or behaviors immediately. Since anxiety cannot resolve itself on its own, it’s likely to worsen over time especially if you allow it to persist without help.
Final Thoughts
Ultimately, predicting the development of GAD is challenging but that doesn’t mean you cannot take steps to manage your symptoms. By seeking help early, you have a better chance at combating anxiety as it can be harder to manage if you don’t address it. By prioritizing issues in your life, you can improve your time management and reduce your anxiety at the same time.
Disclaimer: This article is intended simply to provide information. It does not replace the medical advice of a physician or other medical professional. Please speak with your doctor or therapist if you have any questions or concerns.
