Options for treating anxiety disorders range from psychotherapy to medications, from complementary and alternative medicine to lifestyle modifications. These so-called anxiety cures all try to do one thing – reduce the symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder and eventually eliminate the condition.
Therapies
Psychotherapeutic techniques compose the first line of treatment for any form of anxiety disorder.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, a psychotherapeutic tool, is a key component of most anxiety treatment. CBT makes use of techniques that try to examine the root cause of the panic attack by dissecting the thinking pattern of the patient. Once the pattern that causes the chronic anxiety to happen is identified, it is corrected and replaced with healthier, more appropriate thinking patterns. The basic premise here is that thoughts and not actual events are responsible for the way a person behaves. If thoughts or perceptions are correct and appropriate, it follows that the behavior is appropriate.
Five key components are present in this type of therapy – monitoring, education, physical control strategies, cognitive control strategies and behavioral strategies. All this try to help an individual acquire a much healthier understanding of the condition while allowing him to form coping strategies that work to eliminate the symptoms of anxiety.
Exposure Therapy
It is a natural response for people is to avoid the objects or situations they fear. Exposure therapy tries to alter that.
As its name suggests, ‘exposure therapy’ works by exposing the person systematically to his object of fear. The principle is that with repeated exposures, fear diminishes and eventually dies. The person then gains an increasing sense of control over the situation and what used to cause his levels of anxiety will end up becoming an ordinary thing or situation.
There are 2 approaches to this therapy, both aim to simulate the actual conditions that cause the fear. The first approach happens mostly in the mind of the patient. In the first approach, therapists encourage patients to imagine the object or situation they most fear and allow them to respond to such situation as they would in real life. The second is a more direct approach that forces the patient to actually confront his object of fear…in real life.
Whileboth cognitive and behavioral therapy and exposure therapy are effective by themselves, most clinicians combine them to bring about faster relief from the symptoms of anxiety disorder.
Medications
Medications are generally used as temporary measures. Because of their side effects, physicians generally try to limit the use of medications for treatment of anxiety. This is not suggest, though, that symptoms are not eliminated using medications, they are.
The 3 major classes of medications for anxiety are:
Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) Serotonin and Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors (SNRIs) Benzodiazpines
For faster results, doctors often combine psychotherapy and medications as anxiety cures. To know more about your options, seek the professional medical advice of your physician.
You have many options for anxiety cures. To determine whether a type of drug, therapy or self-help strategy will work for you, it is advisable that you talk to your physician.
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