Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
Everyone experiences certain worries or fears in a light form, just think of a mother who is worried about whether her child will get home safely. With GAD, also known as the “worry disorder”, people are (wrongly) very concerned. People are constantly overprotective, worry a lot and feel tense and nervous all the time. No less than 8% of all Dutch people will have to deal with it once.
Do I have a
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
We all worry once in a while and sometimes that can be useful. For example, worrying can prepare you for a situation where you have to perform, such as a job interview. However, when you experience anxiety and worry about all kinds of things that will take place in the future, you may have a generalized anxiety disorder (GAD): a GAD is characterized by excessive anxiety and worriedness for at least six months and about many different things in the daily routine life. The concerns may arise without cause and there is a feeling of difficulty in controlling the concern. Symptoms of a GAD can include:
- Get tired easily
- Restlessness or a rushed feeling
- Difficulty concentrating or not being able to get to something
- Irritability
- Muscle tension
- Sleep problems
How do I
get rid of my Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)?
A GAD can be treated well with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), with medication, or with a combination of both. Through cognitive behavioral therapy you learn to adjust your (worrying) thoughts and how to worry less. Your therapist will check with you which situations evoke fear in you and the thoughts that accompany them. It is very important that you will (continue to) seek out the situations that provoke fear. You will feel the urge to avoid those situations. Avoidance is the natural response to fear, and can be useful in real danger (such as being attacked by a bear), but because avoidance maintains the fear, it is important in the case of an anxiety disorder to break the pattern of avoidance and thus to be exposed to the fear (= “exposure”). It is important that your practitioner guides this process well and is closely involved in it.
