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G'day Donna,


Here's some reposts on handling GAD.

Gary asks: "What is Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)? A friend was recently diagnosed with it. What can she do for it?"

Gary, Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is a chronic anxiety condition often marked by worry. Quite often folks with GAD are unable to express exactly what it is that they are anxious about. GAD is sometimes referred to by older therapists as "free floating anxiety".

Most everyone who has GAD reports their worry feels difficult to control and appears to be about many things. While GAD is stressing, this form of fretting doesn't usually impair people in work and relationships, nor is intense overwhelm involved.
GAD is said to exist in 3 to 5 % of the United States adult population. These persons are often called "worry-warts".

The DSM-IV criteria for Generalized Anxiety Disorder:

*Persons experience excessive anxiety and worry about several events for more than 50% of the days in a six month period or more.

*Along with the above anxiety and worry the person suffers 3 or more of the following symptoms (Some of which are present in over 50% of the days in the previous six months):

-Experiencing being on edge, keyed up, or restless.
-Easily tires.
-Difficulty paying attention.
-Irritability.
-Muscle tension.
-Sleep difficulties--restlessness, insomnia, unfreshing sleep.
-Aspects of other Axis I (DSM-IV) challenges do not provide the focus of anxiety or worry.
-Challenge is not directly caused by medical conditions or by medications or substances.
-Symptoms do not impair work, social, or personal functioning.
-Doesn't occur during mood disorders, psychosis, PTSD, or pervasive developmental disorder.

Basically folks with GAD have trouble focusing on work because their minds often bound from one worry to another. Someone might typically worry about their job, what their spouse thinks of them, how they will get married before their biological time clock ticks down, or when their children will return from karate class.

GAD's largest problem is that it's wearing and de-energizing because of continuous tension and autonomic nervous system arousal. GAD sufferers often sweat, have racing hearts, upset stomachs, light-headness, clammy hands, frequently urinate, and have a lump in the throat. Quite frequently these persons talk alot and feel vexed about the future.

Often GAD sufferers see their worries through a dark and irrational lens. They may worry about money when they have quite a bit or they might worry about having a major disease when they are in relatively decent health.

Part of a GAD sufferers' difficulty maybe that they are naturally more sensitive to negative cues in the environment and these cues may trigger stronger reactions. There are folks who startle easily and feel overwhelmed by lights, smells, crowds, heights, or touch. Some individuals might be faster at perceiving others as hostile or disinterested or they might worry easier. What's biological and what's how someone's filtering their environment is an unanswered question.
On the upside there seems to be ways to tone this reactivity and sensitivity down. More about this in a bit.

What can GAD folks do for their worries and tensions? Here's some ideas:

*Learn how to handle worries. Use the AVOIDED EMOTION EXERCISE to locate feelings and overwhelm that chronic worry is covering over. Feel and integrate these feelings and generally the worries begin to fade out. Use the Emo Exposure Integrator or Heartbeat Integrator to integrate the feelings beneath the worry.

*Chill down the autonomic nervous system's over response. Use lower forehead palmings, neurovascular pulls, and vagal response based relaxation moves like the Embalmer I & II. This can provide some relief and help someone from getting caught up in worry wartism. The "Shrunken Head" may help in short-circuiting growing flight/fight. The "Shrunken Head" helps block brain signals.

*Look for any Personality Clusters which may form the filters on which worry depends. "Vulnerability" might be one. These clusters of beliefs may be belief processed.

*Doing emotional reviewing of worry memories may desensitize these areas. Give the Emo-Reviewer or the Emotional Writing Process a shot at worry laden memories.

*Make sure you're eating correctly, getting enough sleep, and exercising. This may help with that autonomic nervous system's hair trigger.

*Exercise programs appear to help with GAD. Taking up walking and running seems to help with most forms of anxiety. Bilateral Walking is helpful for this challenge.

*Use behavioral pattern breakers like the Pattern Tree or the Habit Cracker to change habitual worry patterns by changing intentions, urges, feelings states, and beliefs and making pattern alterations.

The use of several interventions is likely to assist someone in greatly decreasing or putting a halt to chronic worry and anxiety.


Take care, Steve