Anxiety is a general term for several disorders that cause nervousness, fear, apprehension, and worrying. These disorders affect how we feel and behave, and they can manifest real physical symptoms. Mild anxiety is vague and unsettling, while severe anxiety can be extremely debilitating, having a serious impact on daily life.
People often experience a general state of worry or fear before confronting something challenging such as a test or interview. These feelings are considered normal though. Anxiety is considered a problem when symptoms interfere with a person's ability to sleep or otherwise function. Generally speaking, anxiety occurs when a reaction is out of proportion with what might be normally expected in a situation.
Generalized anxiety disorder (or GAD) is characterized by excessive, exaggerated anxiety and worry about everyday life events with no obvious reasons for worry. People with symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder tend to always expect disaster and can't stop worrying about health, money, family, work, or school. In people with GAD, the worry often is unrealistic or out of proportion for the situation. Daily life becomes a constant state of worry, fear, and dread. Eventually, the anxiety so dominates the person's thinking that it interferes with daily functioning, including work, school, social activities, and relationships.
GAD affects the way a person thinks, but the anxiety can lead to physical symptoms, as well. Symptoms of GAD can include:
Excessive, ongoing worry and tension
An unrealistic view of problems
Restlessness or a feeling of being "edgy"
Irritability
Muscle tension
Headaches
Sweating
Difficulty concentrating
Nausea
The need to go to the bathroom frequently
Tiredness
Trouble falling or staying asleep
Trembling
Being easily startled
In addition, people with GAD often have other anxiety disorders (such as panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and phobias), suffer from depression, and/or abuse drugs or alcohol.
The exact cause of GAD is not fully known, but a number of factors -- including genetics, brain chemistry and environmental stresses -- appear to contribute to its development.
Genetics: Some research suggests that family history plays a part in increasing the likelihood that a person will develop GAD. This means that the tendency to develop GAD may be passed on in families.
Brain chemistry: GAD has been associated with abnormal levels of certain neurotransmitters in the brain. Neurotransmitters are special chemical messengers that help move information from nerve cell to nerve cell. If the neurotransmitters are out of balance, messages cannot get through the brain properly. This can alter the way the brain reacts in certain situations, leading to anxiety.
Environmental factors: Trauma and stressful events, such as abuse, the death of a loved one, changing jobs or schools, may lead to GAD. GAD also may become worse during periods of stress. The use of and withdrawal from addictive substances, including alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine, can also worsen anxiety.
About 4 million adult Americans suffer from GAD during the course of a year. It most often begins in childhood or adolescence, but can begin in adulthood. It is more common in women than in men.
There are two main forms of treatment for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD):
psychological therapy
medication
Depending on your circumstances, you may benefit from one of these types of treatment or a combination of the two.
Studies of different treatments for GAD have found that the benefits of psychological treatment last the longest, but no single treatment is the best for everyone.
Before you begin any form of treatment, your GP should discuss all of your treatment options with you, outlining the pros and cons of each, while also making you aware of any possible risks or side effects. With your GP, you can make a decision on the treatment most suited to you, taking into account your personal preferences and circumstances.
If you have been diagnosed with GAD, you will usually be advised to try psychological treatment before you are prescribed medication. The main type of psychological treatment for GAD is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is one of the most effective types of treatment for GAD. Research suggests that around half of the people who have CBT recover from GAD and many others obtain some benefit.
CBT works by helping you to identify unhelpful and unrealistic beliefs and behavioural patterns. You and your therapist work together to help you change your behaviour and replace unhelpful beliefs with more realistic and balanced ones.
CBT mainly focuses on the problems that you are experiencing in the present, rather than events from the past. It teaches you new skills and helps you to understand how to react more positively to situations that would usually cause you anxiety.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) recommends that you should have a total of 16 to 20 hours of CBT over a period of four months. Your treatment will usually involve a weekly one- to two-hour session.
See the Health A-Z topic about CBT for more information about this type of treatment.
Applied relaxation is an alternative type of psychological treatment. It was initially used to treat phobias, but it is now also being used to treat conditions such as GAD.
Applied relaxation focuses on relaxing your muscles in a particular way in situations that usually cause you anxiety. The technique will need to be taught to you by a trained therapist but involves:
learning how to relax your muscles
learning how to relax your muscles quickly and in response to a trigger, such as the word ‘relax’
practicing relaxing your muscles in situations that make you anxious
You will need 12 to15 sessions to learn how to use applied relaxation correctly. It has been found to be as effective as CBT.
Your GP can prescribe a variety of different types of medication to treat GAD. Some medication is designed to be taken on a short-term basis, while other medicines are prescribed for longer periods. Depending on your symptoms, you may require medicine to treat your physical symptoms as well as your psychological ones.
If you are considering taking medication for GAD, your GP should discuss the different options with you in detail, including the different types of medication, length of treatment, side effects and possible interactions with other medicines before you start a course of treatment.
Long-term medication includes:
selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), such as sertraline or paroxetine
venlafaxine
pregabalin
Short-term medication includes:
antihistamines
benzodiazepines
buspirone
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are a type of antidepressant that increase the level of a chemical in your brain called serotonin. They can be taken on a long-term basis.
As with all antidepressants, SSRIs can take several weeks before they start working. You will usually be started on a low dose which will gradually be increased as your body adjusts to the medicine.
You may be offered an SSRI called sertraline. Sertraline is not specifically licensed to treat GAD, which means that the manufacturers of the medicine have not applied for a license for it to be used to treat the condition. However, it is used to treat similar conditions, such as panic disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).
Paroxetine is another SSRI that is often prescribed to treat GAD.
When you start taking an SSRI, you should visit your GP after two, four, six and 12 weeks to check your progress and to see if you are responding to the medicine. Not everyone responds well to antidepressant medicines, so it is important that your progress is carefully monitored.
If your GP feels it is necessary, you may require regular blood tests or blood pressure checks when taking antidepressant medication. If, after 12 weeks of taking the medication, you do not show any signs of improvement, your GP may prescribe an alternative SSRI to see if that has any effect.
When you and your GP decide that it is appropriate for you to stop taking your SSRI medication, you will gradually be weaned off the medication by slowly reducing your dose. Never stop taking your medication unless your GP specifically advises you to.
If SSRIs do not help ease your anxiety, you may be prescribed a different type of antidepressant known as venlafaxine.
Venlafaxine belongs to a group of medicines known as selective serotonin and noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs). This type of medicine increases the amount of serotonin and noradrenaline in your brain, helping restore the chemical imbalance that sometimes causes GAD.
You cannot be prescribed venlafaxine if you:
have high blood pressure (hypertension) that is not being treated
have recently had a heart attack
are at risk of having irregular heartbeats (cardiac arrhythmias)
If you have any of the above conditions, you may be at risk of developing complications if you take venlafaxine.
If you are prescribed this medicine, your blood pressure will be monitored regularly.
If SSRIs and SNRIs are not suitable for you, you may be offered pregabalin. This is an anticonvulsant that is used to treat conditions such as epilepsy (a condition that causes repeated seizures). However, it has also been found to be beneficial in treating anxiety.
Antihistamines are usually prescribed to treat allergic reactions. However, some are also used to treat anxiety on a short-term basis.
Antihistamines have a calming effect on the brain, helping you to feel less anxious.
Antihistamines are only effective when used for a short period of time and will only be prescribed for a few weeks.
Hydroxyzine is the most commonly prescribed antihistamine for treating anxiety. This antihistamine can make you feel drowsy, so it is best not to drive or operate machinery when taking the medication.
Benzodiazepines are a type of sedative that help ease the symptoms of anxiety within 30-90 minutes of taking the medication.
Although benzodiazepines are very effective in treating the symptoms of anxiety, they cannot be used for long periods of time. This is because they have the potential to become addictive if used for longer than four weeks. Benzodiazepines also start to lose their effectiveness after this time.
For these reasons, you will usually only be prescribed benzodiazepines to help you cope during a particularly severe period of anxiety. Benzodiazepines can cause side effects.
Due to some side effects, benzodiazepines can affect your ability to drive or operate machinery. Therefore, avoid these activities when taking the medication.
Buspirone is a medicine that can help ease the psychological symptoms of anxiety. It belongs to a group of medicines known as anxiolytics.
You will usually have to take buspirone for two weeks before you notice an improvement. It will be up to your GP how long you continue to take the medicine after this.
Buspirone works in a similar way to benzodiazepines, but does not become addictive. However, it is only recommended as a short-term form of medication.
If you have tried any two treatments (out of medication, CBT and self-help with guidance from your GP) and you still have significant symptoms of GAD, you may want to discuss with your GP whether you should be referred to a mental health specialist.
A referral will work differently in different areas of the UK, but you will usually be referred to your community mental health team. This includes a range of specialists including psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses, clinical psychologists, occupational therapists and social workers.
An appropriate mental health specialist from your local team will carry out an overall reassessment of your condition. They will ask you about your previous treatment and how effective you found it. They may also ask about things in your life that may be affecting your condition, or how much support you get from family and friends. Your specialist will then be able to devise a treatment plan for you, which will aim to effectively treat your symptoms. This may include any of the following:
psychological therapies such as CBT
appropriate treatment of other diseases and conditions that may have an effect on your anxiety
other medication
further referral to specialists.