Stress, which is the main trigger for anxiety attack comes in two categories: (i) physical causes and (ii) environmental causes.

Physical Causes of Anxiety
1. Age - Physical causes for anxiety are those which are triggered by tangible changes in your body. One of the most often quoted factors under this category is middle age. Though more commonly identified with women and menopause, men too experience anxiety symptoms in their mid-to-late 40s. This is because of sudden changes in hormone production which affect the functions of all the systems in the body. Doctors normally prescribe HRT or hormone replacement therapy for women who experience extreme anxiety levels during menopause. For men, the only way out is counseling and symptomatic treatment.

Phobias are often considered as an integral part of anxiety disorders as they represent intense and illogical fears about things, places or specific situations. These fears often trigger serious anxiety attacks, which if left unattended might escalate into serious health problems. Unfortunately, the most common “treatment” people rely upon for phobias is avoidance. People understand their fear is unfounded, but cannot help themselves. Phobias are classified in five major categories:

It is safe to describe Anxiety disorder as the next stage of GAD because when you suffer from panic disorder you would experience all the symptoms, only on a more acute scale. The difference between GAD and panic disorder is that the former lasts for a long time while the latter is more intense and often causes serious health problems.

The causes of panic disorders are usually external stressors; things that attack your feeling of security and well-being. For example, panic attacks are usually experienced following the death of a spouse, parent or child, loss of job, financial loss and the like. While GAD is widely accepted and willingly treated, panic disorder, which is normally referred to the psychiatric ward is seen as a sign of madness and therefore summarily rejected.

Compare these weeds with negative thoughts that every person experiences from time to time. You are caught in the traffic and you would be thinking, “My boss would kill me today”, or you missed your deadline and you think, “This will earn me the pink slip”, or you forget your spouses birthday and think, “I will never hear the end of this” and so on. This is common and it is okay. You tend to exaggerate a little when you are in trouble - but you know in your heart that this would not happen. The trouble starts when these thoughts take over and you are convinced that these exaggerations are true or can be even worse than you imagine.

The cardiovascular exercises consist of extreme strenuous routines, which are aimed to get your heart pumping hard to burn calories and bust out stress from your system. Some common cardiovascular exercises are aerobics, hard running, elliptical machine exercises, walking briskly, and stair stepping and cycling among others. If you are worried about your knees, you could choose the treadmill and/or the elliptical machine, which is not as harsh on the joints, but just as effective.

Stretching exercises are the preparatory phase you put your body through before attempting any type of exercise. These exercises loosen up your muscles and prepare them for the workout that follows. Doing exercise without stretching exercises would most often than not, risk muscle sprains and cramps. Stretching exercises are done after workouts too so the muscle relaxation is gradual.

It is very important that you do not attempt heavy routines such as cardiovascular exercising without the initial warming up of the muscles. You would end up doing more harm to yourself than help. The easiest and most common of all stretching exercises are as follows:

What is the bottom line for anxiety cures? Relaxation. Anxiety means your mind and body is put into the fight-or-flight syndrome. In other words, it is tensed to the maximum possible limit, ready to apply itself to any action that would ensure its survival. To reverse anxiety you need to find ways to relax. The faster you are able to induce relaxation, the faster you would be able to get rid of anxiety. There are many ways to do so. This chapter attempts to describe a few of the most popular and natural forms of relaxation. You could adopt any one, a combination or two or more, or all of them as you find convenient.

Music is very pleasant - even for those who are not particularly fond of it. It has the ability to relax the mind and body as well as generate positive energy. Music, as some studies show, increases the production of serotonin, which is responsible for the feel-good sensation in you. This is why many workplaces where they have strenuous work, introduced soft-playing background music. The results were amazing even when improvements were expected. Productivity went up by a huge margin and absenteeism came down. The inter-collegial relationship improved and overall the atmosphere of these workplaces improved considerably. As a direct result of these changes, staffing turnover also came down and with it the cost in training and orienting personnel in their jobs.

We all have heard this adage so many times that the meaning is lost on us now. However, this is indeed wisdom that you should give due importance. Anxiety is in one way the opposite of happiness or laughter. By this definition, it would make sense that if you laughed often enough anxiety would not be able to establish a hold on you. However, what if the anxiety already got hold on you? Could you reverse the condition with laughter? Yes, you can.

Anxiety is curable. You can be free from anxiety any time, provided you choose to take action towards this end. There is only one thing you need to do: seek medical attention. You are now empowered to recognize the symptoms of the major anxiety disorders and therefore you should be able to ascertain when you need help. The sooner you accept that you have a problem and address it medically, the sooner you would be free from anxiety related problems. The ball is in your court - act swiftly.

Is Self Medication A Way Out?