Generalized Anxiety Disorder characteristics can slowly take over daily life without warning. Simple tasks may start to feel stressful, and the mind may stay stuck in worry mode. With the right treatment and support, anxiety can become easier to manage, and life can feel more balanced again.
What Is Generalized Anxiety Disorder?
GAD anxiety is a mental health condition where a person feels constant and excessive worry about everyday things. This worry feels hard to control and lasts for months, not just a few days. People with excessive worry often feel nervous, tense, or on edge, even when nothing serious is wrong. This anxiety can affect sleep, focus, work, and relationships. Over time, chronic anxiety can make both the mind and body feel tired and overwhelmed.
If you feel like you may be experiencing generalized anxiety disorder, you are not alone in that. In 2012, an estimated 700 000 (2.5%) Canadians aged 15 years and older reported symptoms compatible with GAD in the previous 12 months (Pelletier et al., 2017). You may feel confused about why you feel anxious sometimes without any current reason in your surroundings. You may sometimes worried that why the past trauma is still affecting you in the present moment.
How does the Nervous System of the Body Work?
The nervous system controls how the body feels, moves, and reacts to stress. It sends signals between the brain and body to keep you safe and balanced.
1. Ventral Vagal System (Sympathetic Nervous System)
The sympathetic nervous system is involved in preparing the body for stress-related activities. It prepares the body to either fight or fly away to deal with the situation and slows bodily processes that are less important in emergencies, such as digestion. It causes the release of stress hormones in our bodies. This nervous system, along with these stress hormones, could lead to dry mouth, sweating, foggy and dizzy brain, increased heart rate, increased breathing rate, upset stomach, hypervigilance, and muscle fatigue (Editors, 2019). Under normal conditions, people react to a threat with a temporary increase in this system. As soon as the threat is over, the system dissipates, and the body returns to normal.
2. Parasympathetic system
The parasympathetic nervous system is involved in relaxing the body when there is no stress. It slows bodily processes that leads to decreased heart rate, decreased breathing rate, digestion, sleeping and muscular relaxation (Learning).
3. Dorsal Vagal System
Normally, the dorsal vagus serves a very positive function. It helps the body gently pendulate between arousal and relaxation (Learning).
How Does Mental Tension Develop in the Body?
Long-term anxiety develops when the brain stays in constant alert mode, even without real danger. This keeps the nervous system overactive and causes ongoing worry and physical tension.
1. Hyper-Activation of Sympathetic (Ventral Vagal) System
People who have been traumatized in the past may take much longer for the sympathetic system to return to baseline and spike quickly and disproportionately in response to mildly stressful stimuli or only perceived stimuli. The anxiety could lead to PTSD, where the body continues to defend against a threat that belongs to the past. Healing from PTSD means being able to terminate this continued stress mobilization and restoring the entire organism to safety.
The system’s activation and continuous release of stress hormones lead to unbearable physiological reactions, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, and low self-esteem. The person’s energy now becomes focused on suppressing inner chaos, at the expense of spontaneous involvement in their lives (A., 2014).
Unfortunately, evidence suggests high rates of missed diagnoses and misdiagnosis of brain chemistry imbalance and panic disorder, because the symptoms are often attributed to physical causes.
2. Weakening of the Parasympathetic System
In traumatized people, the relaxation system also gets weakened due to overstimulation of the sympathetic system. The balance between the two systems is lost, and the mind may not feel safe even if the person is safe in the present moment (Jodi Clarke, 2019).
3. Hyper-activation of Dorsal Vagal System:
Sometimes, trauma happens when the fight or flight response cannot work to cope with that. The over-arousal of the sympathetic system leads the dorsal vagus nerve to shut down the entire system, and we go into freeze. This is most common in trauma and in shame, which is developmental trauma (A., 2014).
Generalized anxiety disorder Symptoms
People with GAD feel worried almost every day. The symptoms affect both the mind and the body.
Mental and Emotional Symptoms
- Constant worry about daily life
- Fear that something bad will happen
- Trouble controlling anxious thoughts
- Feeling restless or on edge
- Difficulty focusing or making decisions
- Feeling overwhelmed easily
Physical Symptoms
- Fast heartbeat
- Muscle tension or body pain
- Feeling tired all the time
- Trouble sleeping
- Headaches or stomach issues
- Sweating or shaking
These symptoms last for months and can affect work, relationships, and daily life.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder Causes
GAD does not have one single cause. It usually happens due to a mix of different factors.
Common Causes
- Brain chemistry: Changes in brain chemicals can increase anxiety.
- Genetics: Anxiety can run in families.
- Stressful life events: Trauma, loss, or long-term stress can trigger GAD.
- Personality traits: People who overthink or fear uncertainty may develop GAD.
- Medical conditions: Some health issues can increase anxiety.
- Substance use: Too much caffeine, alcohol, or drug use can worsen anxiety.
GAD develops slowly and can affect anyone at any age.
What Is General Anxiety Disorder Treatment?
Genetic anxiety treatment focuses on reducing constant worry and calming the nervous system. It often includes therapy, lifestyle changes, and sometimes medication to help manage symptoms.
1. Cognitive Strategies
Learning to identify the triggers for anxiety is the first step. The purpose is to change your relationship and response to distressing thoughts. Acknowledging thoughts and then having to maintain the distance from them is important to manage anxiety. Accepting that distressing thoughts occur but do not control your response is also important. These strategies would lead to cognitive flexibility, which helps in resetting the imbalanced nervous system in the body (A., 2014).
2. Somatic Strategies
This includes the strategies to strengthen the relaxing system of our body to restore the balance. This includes stretching, yoga, progressive muscular relaxation, butterfly hug, body scan meditation, and other somatic strategies (A., 2014).
3. Mindfulness
Staying in the present moment helps the brain to reset the imbalanced safety circuits again, so that the person can feel safe when they are safe. Mindfulness encourages clients to observe the anxiety through observing their mind, and not acting on anxiety, preventing it from controlling what they do. It also helps to be mindful of the present circumstances and clues of safety in the present moment (A., 2014).
4. Behavioural Strategies
Keeping yourself physically active, eating well, spending time outdoors in nature, doing activities that gives the feelings of pleasure and accomplishment, and spending time with friends and family helps resetting the anxious brain (A., 2014).
5. EMDR
Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Technique is a highly effective technique to deal with anxiety. It processes the memories that are stuck in the mind and are presenting in the form of anxiety. Bilateral eye-movements are used during the processing phase to move the unprocessed memories in the mind towards the adaptive nervous system of the brain, so that the symptom can resolve (Faretta & Dal Farra, 2019).
If you feel this resonates with you, please get in touch today to get started! Book a free 15-minutes Phone Consultation today. You can contact me at 902-266-2198 or you can email me at info@broadtherapy.ca .
Time to Meet
If you feel tired most of the time, restless, have chest pain, have difficulty breathing, and have difficulty concentrating and completing any task, it may be a sign of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). When these feelings become persistent and excessive, it can feel like it has demolished your life. Book your appointment and make your life stress-free.
References
A., V. der K. B. (2014). In *The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the transformation of trauma*. essay, Viking.
Editors, B. (2019, October 4). Sympathetic nervous system: Definition, Function & Examples: Biology. Biology Dictionary. View Source
Faretta, E., & Dal Farra, M. (2019). Efficacy of EMDR therapy for anxiety disorders. *Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, 13(4)*, 325–332. View Source
Jodi Clarke, M. (2019, August 5). Polyvagal theory and how it relates to social cues. Very well Mind. View Source
Learning, L. (n.d.). Biology for majors II. Lumen. View Source
Locke AB, Kirst N, Shultz CG. Diagnosis and management of generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder in adults. Am Fam Physician. 2015 May 1;91(9):617-24. PMID: 25955736.
Pelletier, L., O’Donnell, S., McRae, L., & Grenier, J. (2017). The burden of generalized anxiety disorder in Canada. *Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention in Canada, 37(2)*, 54–62. View Source
