How does my EAP work? Take these steps toward help
	Screening tools & information Tools to help you identify the problem
	Helpful articles, links & resources A library of online and print information
	Work-life services A healthy balance in a complex world
	Toolkits Managing stress and creating balance
	Return home Return to the Aurora EAP employee home page

Feeling anxious?

Is it "normal" stress, or could you have an anxiety disorder?

Anxiety is an emotion familiar to everyone—as you wait to make a speech, while you're arguing with your spouse, when you're running late for a meeting and get stuck in a traffic jam. Anxiety is a genetically programmed response to a threatening situation; it stirs us to action, keeps us alert to possible danger, and serves as a valuable coping mechanism for survival.

For people with anxiety disorders, however, this normally useful human adaptation can be destructive, disrupting lives, work and relationships. It is important to recognize that anxiety disorders are illnesses, often related to an individual's brain function, life experiences, and heredity, and can be successfully treated when recognized and properly diagnosed.

“Anxiety disorders are the most common of all mental disorders,” according to William Ford, MSW, who specializes in the treatment of anxiety disorders at Aurora Psychiatric Hospital/Aurora Behavioral Health Services. “One in four people will suffer from an anxiety disorder at some time in their lives. Many people manage to live with it, despite the often severe difficulties it can cause, not realizing that the quality of their lives could be vastly improved with treatment.”

Types of Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety disorders may cause feelings of overwhelming fear and worry that are excessive, out-of-control, and grow progressively worse when left untreated. There are several types of anxiety disorders, including generalized anxiety, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, social and other phobias, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Each type of anxiety disorder has characteristic features: 

Generalized Anxiety Disorder is chronic and exaggerated worry and tension, without an identifiable cause. People with this disorder seem to anticipate disaster, find it hard to relax or sleep, and often have physical symptoms such as headaches, sweating, breathlessness and fatigue. Difficulty concentrating and depression often accompany this condition.

Panic Disorder may strike suddenly and repeatedly with no warning. The symptoms—pounding heart, chest pain, weakness, dizziness, numbness— may mimic a heart attack or stroke. Between attacks, there is the persistent fear that it may happen again at any time. Untreated, panic disorder can become very disabling, causing people to greatly restrict their lives to minimize their vulnerability to a panic attack.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) follows an intensely stressful or frightening event in a person's life, leaving them with persistent memories or “flashbacks” and emotional numbness. Sleep problems, depression, irritability or even violence may accompany this disorder.

Phobias may take several forms. Specific phobias, which affect more than one in ten people, are extreme, irrational fears of a particular object or situation—dogs, closed-in places, heights, and flying are a few of the more common phobias. Social phobia is a fear of being painfully embarrassed in a social setting. While adults with phobias realize their fears are irrational, the prospect of facing the feared object or situation may bring on a panic attack or severe anxiety.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is characterized by disturbing thoughts or images (obsessions) and the rituals performed to try to prevent or dispel them (compulsions). A person with OCD feels unable to control their anxious thoughts or rituals. These may include obsession with dirt or germs leading to repeated hand-washing, the need to check things repeatedly, a preoccupation with order, numbers or symmetry, thoughts of violence or fear that you might harm people close to you. Many healthy people can identify with some of the symptoms of OCD, but when such activities consume at least an hour a day, cause distress, and interfere with daily life, help should be sought.

While the causes of anxiety disorders are still being researched, recent studies of the human brain reveal distinctive patterns in how and where memories of fear are stored, and how traumatic experiences alter brain structure. New techniques for looking at images of the brain have allowed scientists to look at specific parts of the brain and how they react in a person experiencing a variety of anxiety disorders. “Understanding this brain circuitry will lead to diagnoses and treatments of unprecedented precision in the future,” says Dr. Steven E. Hyman, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, who has taken a leading role in recent neurological studies of anxiety disorders.

How to treat anxiety disorders

The good news about anxiety disorders is that they can be effectively treated. “The treatment of choice for anxiety disorders is usually a combination of behavior therapy and medication,” says Ford. “Often behavior modification therapy, where the individual is exposed to fear-producing situations and learns to control their response to them, is equally or more effective than medication, provided the client is committed to following through with the prescribed treatment.” Such behavioral changes have been shown to alter the underlying brain chemistry that causes anxiety as effectively as medication, confirming the physical basis for these disorders.

If you, or someone you know, has symptoms of anxiety that are persistent, out-of-control, and interfere with everyday activities, it may be time to seek help. Your EAP can assist you in evaluating your situation and guide you to appropriate resources.

Call your EAP at (414) 257-2124 or 1-800-236-3231.