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Generalized Anxiety Disorder Symptoms

If you’ve been diagnosed by your doctor with general anxiety disorder, don’t convince yourself that you have a clinical illness—you don’t. This disorder doesn’t mean that you have a physical or mental illness. Your brain is fine, and your body is fine. You’re suffering from a sensitized, anxious state.

You have probably come across this list of generalized anxiety disorder symptoms many times before.

• Nausea
• Dizziness
• Exhaustion
• Vision problems
• Cramps
• Intrusive thoughts
• Feelings of unreality and depression
• Sleep disturbance
• Difficulty concentrating or mind going blank

But what do these symptoms really mean?

When talking generalized anxiety disorder symptoms, we are really talking about fear manifesting in different forms. Fear cuts us off from life. It takes us out of our natural God given flow and into a stagnant state where we feel removed from the world around us.

Imagine life as a fast flowing river heading towards the sea. Fear is an obstruction in that river causing stagnant pools of water, where life no longer flourishes. The manifestation of that fear can be generalized anxiety disorder symptoms.

In order to end these symptoms, you need to remove those obstructions from your life and restore your natural flow.

Things that hold those obstructions in place are things like overreacting to the symptoms of anxiety. Panic Away will teach you exactly that. The more you can learn to not react to the symptoms the more you find yourself in that flow. It involves making very small changes in key areas of your life that will nudge you from fear, back into life.

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The Coffee Cup Exercise

There’s a fine line between anxiety and feelings of excitement. Instead of robbing you of your confidence and drive, anxiety can actually motivate and excite you. The following exercise demonstrates a simple way to handle the nervous energy you feel.

When you feel anxious, accept the way you are feeling in that moment. Instead of getting upset by the anxiety, decide to turn it to your advantage. You can turn your nervous energy into excitement and stimulation by pretending you have just finished a strong cup of coffee! Just like caffeine, anxiety stimulates your nervous system. Under its influence your mind is more alert and your body is primed for action, so why not take advantage of all that extra energy buzzing around your system and pretend it is simply the result of a caffeine kick?

If you wake feeling anxious don’t analyze the way you feel, rather decide to let the nervous energy become your new kick-start to the day. Feel how alive and alert your body and mind are because of the anxiety. Now make the most of that nervous energy and use it to drive your day forward.

You could go exercise, clean the house, or get that report written. Do anything at all to channel that energy into something constructive. What you must not do is turn that energy inwards and worry about it. Turing inwards and analyzing the way you feel only creates more anxiety. Instead, push the energy outwards and move with it. Work in tandem with the nervous energy and what you will find is that it quickly transforms from feelings of fear into excitement.

Why do you think Woody Allen is so creative? He puts all of his nervous energy to great use by being creative. You can, too, by turning what is normally an uncomfortable feeling into a force of motivation and action.

So the next time you feel anxious, simply pretend you have just had a big cup of coffee and then channel that nervous energy to your advantage. This exercise is another example of how a small change in perception can transform the way your anxiety feels.

Credit for the exercise goes to our Panic Away forum moderator, Kasey. It just a small sample of the wonderful inspiration and support you will find on the Panic Away Forum. Full membership to the forum comes with each purchase of Panic Away so why not join today?

To learn more about how to end panic attacks and general anxiety fast then

Click Here

Barry McDonagh

PanicAway.com

download panic away now The Coffee Cup Exercise

All material provided is for informational or educational purposes only. No content is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Consult your physician regarding the applicability of any opinions or recommendations with respect to your symptoms or medical condition

What Causes Panic Attacks?

Are anxiety and panic attacks making it difficult for you to enjoy your daily life? If you’re like most people who suffer from high levels of anxiety and experience panic attacks on a regular basis, you may not be aware of what your “triggers” are.

I talk more about what causes panic attacks and anxiety in my book, Panic Away. In most cases, the trigger for panic attacks and other forms of general anxiety are related to physical, mental and emotional exhaustion.

Basically, you are more vulnerable to having a panic attack or experiencing an uncomfortable level of anxiety when you are stressed out, burned out, or aren’t getting enough rest. Physical exhaustion can be the result of overwork or not getting enough stress. It may also be the result of bad eating habits, or a lack of quality nutrition.

Mental exhaustion can be the result of excessive worrying and mental stress. If you constantly feel mentally drained and are finding it difficult to cope with your emotions, you may be at risk for having a panic or anxiety attack. Emotional exhaustion is similar in this respect. Conflict with loved ones and relationship problems can be triggers for panic attacks.

Ultimately, all of these triggers make it difficult for the mind and body to find rest and be peaceful. In many cases, these situations can make you feel very edgy, and you may even be more fearful than normal. In a sensitized state, small things can cause excessive anxiety and make you vulnerable to a full-blown panic or anxiety attack.

Physical symptoms of an oncoming panic attack include sweating, feelings of choking, numbness, nausea and even chest pain. Sensitized people can’t help but become worried about these sensations, and this can lead to panicky feelings which trigger either a situational or spontaneous panic attack.

The good news is, anxiety and panic attacks can be stopped when you trace the root cause of the problem. Address your daily lifestyle, and situations or circumstances that are causing you to feel extremely worried, stressed or physically exhausted. Then you can start making positive changes to your life, and take steps that will help to reduce your risk of having a panic attacks.

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How to Deal with Unwanted Anxious Thoughts

People who experience a high level of anxiety on a regular basis, and those who suffer from frequent panic attacks, often struggle with dealing with unwanted anxious thoughts. These thoughts are typically based on a particular place, situation or thing, and may include worrying about one’s health, fear that a loved one is in trouble, or other fears that limit the person’s ability to make rational decisions.

Unwanted anxious thoughts, sometimes know as intrusive thoughts, can become intrusive to the point that they lead to obsessive compulsive disorder or other disturbances that take away from the person’s quality of life. However, there are several things a person who is dealing with unwanted anxious thoughts can do to curtail the problem. talk more about dealing with this side effect of anxiety in my book Panic Away.

In order to take control over the cycle of anxious thoughts, it’s important to take a two-pronged approach. This involves making a big shift in your attitude, and using certain visualization tools that will help you ‘see’ a positive outcome.

A shift in attitude means you need to accept that the anxiety is there, and then ‘release’ it from your mind. If you focus closely on a certain thought or idea, you’ll see that it connects to a similar thought and you probably jump from one thought to another over the course of the day. If you continually find yourself coming back to a certain negative thought, you need to accept that it’s there until you become desensitized to it.

Your emotional reaction to the thought is literally what is making the thought appear in your mind time and time again. When you can maintain a ‘neutral’ attitude towards it, it will simply disappear from view.

There are several visualization tools you can use to end unwanted anxious thoughts, and one of them involves positive imagery coupled with deep breathing. You can ground yourself and stop the cycle of anxious thoughts completely simply by breathing deeply and enjoying the feeling of safety and security for a few moments.

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