I made the decision to research and write about generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) because I have people close to me who could. be affected in a rather slight way. I wanted to better understand the causes, the treatments and also, in general, how to improve the quality of life of a person suffering from GAD. As the name shows, GAD is more generalized, and it is in the sense that it is not tied to one specific thing like a phobia might be. I believe this generalization has a greater detrimental effect on the patient than on someone who might suffer from a phobia, such as a phobia of heights. If you have a specific phobia, you can either avoid what scares you or pursue treatment that can take a specific path to really examine this unique fear and how to overcome it. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essay Generalized anxiety disorder is characterized as “excessive, continuous anxiety and worry that is difficult to control and interferes with one's daily activities” (Mayo Clinic Staff). GAD causes the patient to have an excessive stress response to minor problems that arise or an excessive stress reaction to nothing in particular. The person suffering from it may have difficulty relaxing and have difficulty coping with any situation about which they feel uncertain. It also leads to overthinking in situations that may seem simple. There is also an aspect of GAD that can cause the sufferer to feel threatened in situations where they should not feel that way. An accumulation of these symptoms can cause irritability and an inability to sleep as well as a feeling of constant fatigue. There is also a possibility of a psychic response to GAD. These mental symptoms may include "racing heart, dry mouth, stomach ache, muscle tension, sweating, trembling, and irritability" (Harvard Health Publishing, Harvard Medical School, published in June 2011). These psychological symptoms have a somatic relationship with the psychological effects of GAD. One thing that has been shown is that GAD is almost twice as common in women as in men. The risk of developing GAD appears to be highest between late adolescence and mid-adulthood, but can appear at any time. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, "GAD is diagnosed when a person has difficulty controlling worry more than once for at least six months and experiences three or more symptoms." The combination of psychological effects and physical symptoms makes GAD a very disruptive, even debilitating, mental health problem. From a biological perspective, a higher likelihood of developing GAD has been found in people who have family members suffering from it. Although it is still unclear why some family members will develop this disorder while others will not. A major biological consideration is the fight or flight response. People with GAD might have an unbalanced fight-or-flight response, and this stress response is a contributing factor in both what they are thinking and the somatic relationship that causes the physical symptoms. Another biological consideration is a possible imbalance of hormones produced by the brain and the possibility of an overly sensitive amygdala. From a sociocultural perspective, GAD can present a major problem. Firstly, as a society we lookdifferently people with mental health problems. People with GAD may feel a lack of trust from others. They may also feel that others view them as a burden because their anxiety interferes with their daily lives. On the other hand, people with GAD might have more difficulty interacting with people. Social anxiety is a symptom of GAD that can be very common. This may prevent the patient from going out with friends or participating in social activities that an otherwise healthy adult would participate in. This can lead to more depression and anxiety, perpetuating the cycle of negative thoughts and feelings. The treatment modality I would choose to treat GAD is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. CBT has been widely used for the treatment of GAD as well as a host of other disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, and has been shown to be as effective, if not more so, than drug treatment, in the short term. term also. as in the long term. Cognitive behavioral therapy attempts to change unhealthy and unhelpful thoughts that people have in their minds. This helps people recognize their unhealthy habits and their reactions to their thoughts and feelings. According to the American Psychological Association, CBT works according to the following fundamental principles. “1. Psychological problems are based, in part, on faulty or unhelpful ways of thinking. 2. Psychological problems are based, in part, on unhelpful behavior patterns. 3. People suffering from psychological problems can learn better ways to cope, relieve their symptoms, and become more effective in their lives.” (APA Staff 2018) CBT wants the patient to recognize distortions in their thought patterns and work to find solutions to make meaningful change. Instead of allowing a thought to enter their mind and letting that thought affect their response, CBT aims to get the patient to stop, recognize that this thought is occurring, and then respond to it. CBT also allows patients to recognize destructive patterns in their behavior and work to correct these patterns. This is where CBT aims to instill problem-solving skills. The techniques one can use to resolve the problems that arise in their heads are only part of what makes CBT effective. This is an example of where CBT can be a useful tool to help someone who uses alcohol or tobacco deal with stress. CBT helps the person recognize that in response to their stress, they reach these vices which end up hurting them even more. This comes into play with generalized anxiety disorder in several ways. First, recognizing unhealthy and unhelpful thoughts can greatly help a person with GAD. Being able to stop and realize that the patient is overanalyzing a situation and that this overanalysis is causing a lot of stress and pain is huge progress in being able to face what is wrong and find solutions. meaningful solutions to correct these thought patterns. Another situation is the patient's reaction to these stress patterns. For example, if a patient with GAD begins to experience a high level of fear and anxiety toward a social activity they are supposed to attend, they might shut down and refuse to leave the house. This can be one of the most crippling effects of GAD, social situations can be a huge stressor for anyone with an anxiety disorder. Through CBT, a person suffering from GAD may be able to recognize the reaction they have to theirfeelings and to resolve her problems in a way that she learned through CBT and to be able to overcome her initial reaction. aspects of CBT that can help with GAD. I believe that gaining confidence in one's own abilities is something that a person with GAD can greatly benefit from. I believe one of the many causes of high anxiety is not having control or understanding what might happen in a situation. For me, it's more of a trust issue than some might make out. If someone can develop confidence in themselves, when these anxious thoughts invade their head, they can use that confidence to bring themselves down and know in their mind that they are in control and everything will be okay. A lack of self-confidence can be crippling when it comes to managing anxiety issues. Furthermore, according to the American Psychological Association "CBT treatment also typically involves efforts to change behavioral patterns," including "facing one's fears instead of avoiding them, using role-playing to prepare for potentially problematic interactions with others, learn to calm your mind and relax your body. » (APA Staff 2018) Facing your fears instead of avoiding them is a big step toward being able to correct unhealthy thoughts and feelings, especially when it comes to anxiety disorders. We must be able to question ourselves in order to remedy what ails us. Anxiety tends to pull us back to a place in our mind that allows us to feel safe. The person who is suffering must be able to stop themselves from going to that place and facing what they know scares them. Using role play to prepare for potentially problematic interactions can really help someone overcome social situations. The anxiety that prevents someone from engaging in social situations is what needs to be overcome. Gaining self-confidence by going through the role-playing process can do wonders in terms of reducing anxiety levels by showing the patient that they can overcome any situation. is thrown in their path. Since social anxiety can be a crippling effect of GAD, this role-playing process can be a very important aspect of CBT that can really help the patient. With many things in life, practice makes perfect. Additionally, the more someone does something, the more comfortable they become with it. Repeated exposure to something that can cause great anxiety can help teach someone the best way to cope. If someone always avoids something they are not good at, like how to behave in a social situation, then they will never develop the skills to do so. Finally, learning to calm your mind and relax your body can have huge benefits for the whole person. well-being for a person suffering from GAD. This goes back to the benefits found in somatic psychology. Being able to make the mind and body work in unison to bring a person's overall well-being to where it needs to be is one of the major goals of CBT. If a person can master how to relax the mind or body, then they have developed the foundation to be able to gain overall mindfulness, which is something GAD can really rob someone of. CBT doesn't really focus on specific events in someone's life. causing them stress, but rather negative feelings that someone will associate with these events. CBT truly allows the patient to become their own psychiatrist, examine their own feelings and find ways to curb these negative reactions. The GADactually concerns negative reactions to situations that the person finds stressful. CBT can be an incredibly useful tool to use to get the person to examine why they are experiencing negative feelings about certain situations and to really help develop a strategy for dealing with them. I think this is a good area of ​​study to use to really dive into Generalized Anxiety Disorder is biological and somatic psychology. I believe a large part of GAD is how the mind and body interact and create a toxic and stressful environment within themselves. The mind overreacting to what it perceives as a stressful situation has a direct negative effect on the body and the hormones that are released over and over again can, over time, have a very negative side effect. However, this mind-body interface can also be used as an effective tool to combat GAD. In Dr. Robert Sapolsky's YouTube lecture "1. Introduction to Human Behavioral Biology", he explains the 2 main themes of his course which in this case is Bio 150 at Stanford University. He says, "Sometimes what happens in your body can dramatically influence what happens in your brain," and then he adds, "Sometimes what happens in your head will affect every outpost in your body." These major themes in human biology can help us understand some of the effects of GAD. When you look at the hormones that cause the fight or flight response in the body, these stress hormones interact with both the mind and the body to achieve the goal of protecting the person. Thus, a biological psychologist would view GAD as a whole-body problem and not just a mental disorder. The understanding gained through the use of biological psychology can help fuel how we might treat someone using the concepts of somatic psychology and it all goes back to stress. and how we can alleviate stress and anxiety through mental health practices and physical intervention. We already understand one way to help a person from a psychotherapeutic point of view, in this case cognitive behavioral therapy, but somatic psychology shows us that we can also do things like exercises or breathing techniques. CBT helps the patient learn problem-solving techniques and coping skills when faced with an anxiety-provoking situation, but we can use things like exercise and breathing techniques to really lower the heart rate , which will have a profound effect on the stress response that makes GAD so crippling. It has been shown that an activity such as lifting weights can have a positive effect on the body's regulation of emotions and hormones. Depression, which is a very common occurrence among people with GAD and can sometimes be one of the root causes of GAD, has been shown to be significantly reduced in those who dedicate time each day to physical activity. 30 minutes of exercise 3 to 5 days a week can have a very positive effect on physical and mental health. Additionally, the breathing technique of inhaling for 4 seconds, holding for 4 seconds, exhaling for 4 seconds, holding for 4 seconds, and repeat has been shown to reduce a person's heart rate and instill feeling of calm. Another theme in Somatic psychology that can be used to at least understand what is happening inside the body can be found in chapter 3 of the book "The Body Remembers" by Babette Rothschild (2000). In a, 9(1), 54-68.