Generalized Anxiety Disorder Symptons
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Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is when an individual suffers chronic and inflated feelings of anxiety and worry for a prolonged period (usually six months or more) on a day-to-day level. Issues that are often of concern to those suffering Generalized Anxiety Disorder are health, family, work or money. The level of anxiety ranges from mild to severe, and can be interruptive, debilitating or in extreme cases, life threatening. |
Symptoms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder can be categorized into four types, behaviors, thoughts, feelings and physical. Behavioural symptoms include:
- Avoiding social situations: The sufferer feels that they are not able to interact successfully with others, and the thought of them causes feelings of anxiety, so they choose not to partake.
- Unable to complete tasks at work: For those with severe feelings of anxiety, simple tasks can become unachievable.
- Becoming withdrawn: Worry and anxiety can cause a sufferer to withdraw into themselves and stop communicating with others.
- An inability to concentrate: Because the sufferer is consumed by an inflated sense of worry, they find it hard to concentrate on other things.
Symptoms of Thoughts include:
- Thoughts of personal failure and worthlessness: Suffering from anxiety can produce low self-esteem.
- The sufferer feels they should take the blame for things: Because self-esteem is low, sufferers see themselves as responsible for negative things.
- An inability to feel positive about life: Lack of control and feelings of helplessness contribute to a negative frame of mind.
Symptoms of feelings include:
- Feelings of irritability and frustration: Anxiety can often cause the sufferer to get frustrated and irritable over certain situations.
- Lacking in confidence: Because many sufferers of Generalized Anxiety Disorder loose the ability to control their emotions and feelings, their self-confidence becomes affected.
- Indecisiveness: Simple tasks and decisions start to feel out of reach.
Physical symptoms include:
- Lack of energy: Lack of motivation and control can lead to listlessness.
- Tired and rundown yet unable to sleep properly: Sleep is often affected through severe worry.
- Physical pain, such as muscle pain or headaches: Stress can often show itself physically, in terms of headaches, neck pain and other muscle pain.
- Gastrointestinal discomfort: People suffering GAD can experience a churning gut and general discomfort.
- Lack of appetite and weight loss: General unhappiness can lead to lack of appetite.
There is a great deal of information available about Generalized Anxiety Disorder, particularly online. Numerous websites offer free online questionnaires that can indicate whether a person is suffering from GAD. GAD is treatable with professional medical help, and one of the first steps towards successful treatment is recognizing and understanding the symptoms of the disorder.
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