Generalized Anxiety Disorder

You can best describe General Anxiety Disorder (sometimes referred to as GAD) as excessive worrying either about specific situations or just life in general. The worrying can happen everyday and sometimes last all day long for many months. People suffering from this disorder find it very difficult to control the worry and can reach a period where it seems that it is taking over their entire life.

Usually there are common factors about the content of the worry; the most common subjects are work, money, heath and family. These may seem link things that we all worry about a little everyday but for a individual with GAD, it can seem to them like the glass is always half empty. As the disorder is mainly rooted around stress, common symptoms of other stress related disorders could be found such as irritability, muscle tension, restlessness, trouble sleeping and fatigue.

It is noted that individuals with Generalized Anxiety Disorder have more physical illness and pain, this can also lead to decreased social, physical and role functioning. Symptoms such as shortness of breath, accelerated heart rate and dizziness seem to be less up-front in this disorder than other well known anxiety disorders such as panic attacks and similar stress disorders.

People with Generalized Anxiety Disorder find it very difficult if not impossible to turn off the worry that occupies their life. A colleague's comment about the state of the economy could result in worrying for the rest of the day about the risk of being laid off, a small tiff with your partner in the morning could lead to the rest of the day thinking about how your marriage is going to end, all in all a person with GAD will look at situations and experience anxiety a lot more intensely than the average healthy person. Most people with GAD will not avoid situations that they worry about like is common with other anxiety disorders such as panic attacks, instead they will participate in the situation while feeling very anxious and filled with tension.

It is thought that Generalized Anxiety Disorder affects around 4% of the population (almost 7 million Americans), with women being twice as likely to be diagnosed with GAD than men. The disorder can gradually appear in people’s lives over time being most at risk during childhood and when reaching middle age, it has also been reported that genes can play a role in GAD.