From medications to psychotherapy, from alternative medicine to lifestyle modifications and self-help strategies, there is a wide range of options when it comes to treating anxiety disorder. These so-called anxiety cures all try to do one thing – reduce the symptoms of anxiety disorder and eventually eliminate the condition.
Therapies
The first line of treatment for anxiety disorder is often composed psychotherapy tools.
A psychotherapeutic technique, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT is a standard method for treatment of anxiety disorders. CBT tries to identify the cause of panic attack by evaluating the individual’s thinking pattern. Once the negative thinking pattern has been determined, it is corrected and the patient is taught how to replace it with more appropriate thinking pattern. The basic premise of this therapy is that thoughts – not actual events – are responsible for the way people behave. If perceptions or thoughts are correct and appropriate, it follows that the behavior is appropriate.
Five key components are present in this type of therapy – monitoring, education, physical control strategies, cognitive control strategies and behavioral strategies. All this try to help an individual acquire a much healthier understanding of the condition while allowing him to form coping strategies that work to eliminate the symptoms of anxiety.
Exposure Therapy
It is a natural response for people is to avoid the objects or situations they fear. Exposure therapy tries to alter that.
As its name suggests, ‘exposure therapy’ works by exposing the person systematically to his object of fear. The principle is that with repeated exposures, fear diminishes and eventually dies. The person then gains an increasing sense of control over the situation and what used to cause his levels of anxiety will end up becoming an ordinary thing or situation.
Exposure therapy comes in two approaches. One, is the simulation that happens only in the mind. In the first approach, the patient creates a simulation of the situation in his mind and respond to it the same way he would in real life. The second, more direct approach, allows the individual to confront his object of fear in real life.
While, both therapies are effective by themselves, most clinicians opt to combine them to bring about faster effects.
Medications
Medications are generally used as temporary measures. Because of their side effects, physicians generally try to limit the use of medications for treatment of anxiety. This is not suggest, though, that symptoms are not eliminated using medications, they are.
The 3 major classes of medications for anxiety are:
Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) Serotonin and Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors or SNRIs Benzodiazpines
For faster results, doctors often combine psychotherapy and medications as anxiety cures. To know more about your options, seek the professional medical advice of your physician.
You have a lot of for anxiety cures. To determine whether a type of drug, therapy or self-help strategy will work for you, it is advisable that you talk to your physician.