Anxiety Treatment

How a doctor will administer anxiety treatment to someone who is suffering from anxiety will depend on the cause of the anxiety and the patient's treatment preferences. Sometimes the root causes of anxiety are so strong that their effect has to be brought down to low levels before the individual undergoes anxiety treatment for the disorder. Anxiety treatments are of many different types they are medication, psychotherapy, behavioral therapy, psychological counseling, traditional herbs and self treatment.

Medication

Anxiety treatment for the longest time has been through medication. The medical treatment for anxiety is done through several types of drugs such as benzodiazepines, antidepressants, beta-blockers and tricyclics. When the cause of the anxiety is a physical ailment, the medication treatment will be administered to eliminate that particular ailment and at times involves surgery or other forms of medication to regulate that physical anxiety trigger. These medicines are used to control just some of the physical and mental symptoms.

Benzodiazepines: - Historically this is the drug that has been used to treat anxiety. However the use of these drugs has declined because of their addictive nature.

Anti-depressants: - This medication especially those in the class of serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) are also used commonly to treat anxiety although they were prescribed to treat depression. Their side effects include jitters, nausea, and sexual dysfunction especially when treatment begins.

Tricyclics: - These drugs are older than SSRIs and have been known to work well for most anxiety disorders other than obsessive-compulsive disorder. Their side effects include drowsiness, weight gain, dizziness and dry mouth.

Self treatment

Self treatment is a self administered anxiety treatment where by the patient with the disorder practices several routines or behavioral changes in the incident of an anxiety attack or as a preventive measure to prevent occurrences. The activities are

Yoga – This is the activity where one sits in a room by himself or with others and does stretching and exercises to control the heart rate and to ease the tension.

• Practice deep abdominal breathing in the case of an anxiety attack.

• Taking a long warm bath.

• Replacing negative self talk with positive self talk.

Generally Counseling

This form of anxiety treatment is where the patient seeks advice and help from a therapist or a clinical doctor who specializes with healing or therapeutically healing anxiety disorders. These forms of therapy include psychotherapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy or a combination of therapies.

• Cognitive behavioral therapy is a form of anxiety treatment which involves the changing of a person’s thoughts by the therapist. The patients are asked to explain how they feel towards certain things or occurrences that have caused them to have the anxious behavior.

• Psychotherapy is another anxiety treatment which involves talking with a trained mental health professional for example a psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker, or guidance counselor so as to explore the causes of anxiety and the possible ways of coping with symptoms.

Other forms of treatment

Apart from the above named forms of anxiety treatment, there are other recommendations that aid in quick recovery from any anxiety ailment or as a preventive measure to prevent the occurrence of an anxiety attack. They are

• Reducing the consumption of caffeine, tea, cola, and chocolate.

• Checking with a licensed doctor or pharmacist before making use of over-the-counter or herbal remedies to find out if they have chemicals that may contribute to anxiety.

• Performing regular exercises. 

• Eating food that is healthy.

• Avoiding using alcohol or cannabis.