Anxiety Medication to Treat Anxiety Disorders

Excessive anxiety can have dire consequences. This is because unhealthy emotions and thoughts such as paranoia, fear, dread and worry play over a person's mind over and over again. As a result, the body responds but because the response is sustained for a long time, physical symptoms like palpitations and hyperventilation appear. The need for anxiety medication becomes urgent at this point.

What is worse is that excessive anxiety can trigger other disorders as well. In fact, the words anxiety disorder has been used as a general term that covers all other abnormal fear and anxiety under the aegis of psychiatry. The types of anxiety disorders are;

Generalized anxiety disorder - Here, anxiety lasts for a long time. There is no object of focus as well which is why the individual feels non-specific incessant fear and worry that impedes daily activities. This is also the most common anxiety disorder. Anxiety medication can help reduce the chronic anxiety that the person feels. Usually, drugs marked as SSRI or Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor is the first line treatment.

Panic disorder - This is characterized by overwhelming feelings of apprehension and terror. Shaking, tremors, dizziness and confusion are the typical manifestations. The panic attacks last for about ten minutes and in the long run may have negative effects on the heart. Because of increased heart rate and hyperventilation that occurs during panic attacks, the body becomes so accustomed to it that even in normal situations, the heart still palpitates giving the individual the feeling of another oncoming panic attack. Beta blockers have been found to be an effective anxiety medication because it minimizes the physical symptoms brought about by panic disorders.

Phobias - Phobias are defined as irrational intense fear of a certain stimulus. It produces the same effects as panic disorders. In this case, an example of an anxiety medication for alleviating symptoms of phobias is benzodiazepines.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) - This is characterized by obsessing (on distressing thoughts, images and objects) and compulsions (which is an urge to do something about the previous.) The thought process of individuals with OCD is illogical. An example is obsessing on writing in a specific pattern to avoid causing harm to the hand or fingers.

Separation anxiety disorder - At some point, all people feel anxious when they are separated from something or someone that they have gotten attached to. However, in this case, excessive and inappropriate anxiety is felt by individuals.

Social anxiety disorder - This is when individuals feel intense terror when interacting socially. They are extremely frightened of public humiliation. This is often manifested during public speaking. It can also manifest in normal social interactions. Because of elevated levels of anxiety, the individual blushes, stutters and over perspire when socializing with other people. In order to prevent the aforementioned physical symptoms from appearing, individuals with social anxiety disorder shy away from the crowd leading to social isolation.

Anxiety medication is a great help to individuals with all forms of anxiety disorders. These drugs should be taken with care, however, for they have side effects that may bring more harm than good to an individual.