What is Generalised Anxiety Disorder?

Introduction

Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is a type of anxiety disorder that causes a consistent state of anxiousness and worry, even when there is no direct or clear cause for it. Around 1 in 25-28 people in UK have GAD, with likely many more showing one or more symptoms, and in the US around 3% of the adult population have GAD also. But before we go into detail about GAD, what is Anxiety?

What is Anxiety?

Anxiety is a very difficult feeling to quantify with words, yet we’ve all felt it. It’s a sense, which sometimes can be overwhelming, of stress, threat, fear, and nervousness all rolled into one. It can be constant like it is with GAD, or it can be heightened through various factors. The tougher times in life can certainly bring about stress and anxiety, and some folks can be more susceptible through genetic factors and lifestyle factors. Either way, it’s hard. Anxiety is invisible but can cause absolute havoc with your body, mentally and physically. In most cases, the feeling of anxiety goes away eventually and fluctuates with life’s difficult times. However, sometimes it can linger and almost feel normal to someone to feel anxious all the time, and this is when it can become a problem.

GAD and Knock-On effects

Whether someone has GAD or not, consistent anxiety is a difficult thing to live with. It can affect our sleep, our gastric processes, hormonal processes, perceptions, interactions, our workplaces, our home lives and so on. It can run through any department of your life, and when we are so busy, also very difficult to remedy. Your suspicions of having GAD should ping when you find you are anxious all the time, and there’s no obvious reason for it. Here’s some brief mental symptoms of GAD should you want to know:

-          You’re worried all the time and feel overwhelmed.

-          You feel tired because you’re consistently getting poor sleep.

-          Finding it difficult to concentrate and focus.

-          You’re feeling uneasy, tense and/or regularly depressed.

-          You have a constant fear something awful might happen.

 The physical symptoms of GAD vary from person to person, and in severity. Ultimately a high level of anxiety can negatively affect your physical body. Consistent levels of high anxiety can take those negative effects further, and its not very nice at all.

Here’s what you can do about it.

When I coach people with some form of anxiety problem be it a high-level anxious feeling that is consistent, or be it an anxiety-based condition, the remedy often starts in the same way, and you can do this at home. Anxiety on its own requires specific management and needs reliable, regular support in a safe space for the individual to air all their triggers, fears, and issues. The physical knock-on effects of anxiety are what really make life harder to live. To deal with the physical effects, you must first dot the I’s and cross the T’s - get the basics in order. You cannot hope to beat your anxiety-related physical symptoms quickly if your body and mind aren’t working optimally. These are the basics – sleep, nourishment, and structure.

The Basics - Sleep

Sleep is central to everything. The less sleep we get, in most cases, the worse things can get. Anxiety and GAD go straight for your sleep quality and hits you on a nightly basis to where you wake up and you might as well have not slept. Night after night like this, and the anxiety gets worse and spirals, and the physical symptoms become much harder to manage. It creates a negative cycle where things gradually get worse, and if you have chronic illnesses, this cycle starts to cause a lot more flare-ups. Taking your sleep back should be your first step. Put time aside and investigate methods that can help the brain shut down. Look at a multitude of methods and slap them together to create your own little routine that your brain and body can familiarise itself with over time. Once familiarised and given a couple of weeks, you’re getting a consistent number of hours of deep sleep. Regular lengths of time sleeping is MUCH better than fluctuating lengths, your body needs the consistency.

The Basics – Nourishment

Following sleep, we wake up often subpar to what we’d like. Lack of sleep is often the main cause of this, but let’s assume that part was fine. What does the body need when you wake up? Sunlight, electrolytes, and activity, in that order. Sunlight or natural light is key to many internal processes our bodies have. This light, in most cases, is the activator and so when we don’t get the desired light in the morning for the desired length of time, you can expect to be slower off the mark. Electrolytes is the term given to the group of salts that hydrate the body, magnesium, sodium, and potassium to name a few. They’re often used during and after physical activity, but they’re also needed in the morning in smaller quantities because we wake up dehydrated. We lose a lot of fluids during the night, and so replenishing these is a good step to waking up in good time, to then sleeping in good time later on. Being nourished like this when you wake up helps just a little bit when you feel anxious in those mornings, it beats being exhausted and anxious by a mile.

The Basics – Structure

Whilst it’s not fullproof, having a consistent daily structure does show signs of helping the brain shut down when it comes to sleeping, as well as managing anxiety throughout the day. You don’t have to be ultra time-aware, but having a general order to the day allows the brain to do things, move on, and progress through time. A sense of achievement goes a long way with anxiety management too and when the sleeping time comes, there may be more positivity in that brain rather than the things that weren’t done. It all helps.

Conclusion

This blog post doesn’t even scratch the surface when it comes to the difficulties faced by those riddled with anxiety or GAD. Please use some of the guidance mentioned in this post if you haven’t already, and any further questions please contact me at spoonie.supp@gmail.com and I can assist with any inquiries. I have my own battle with anxiety with having chronic illness in my home, and a lot of the techniques I suggest are things I’ve tried and tested. Go to my coaching page at https://www.spooniesupport.org/personal-coaching if you’re interested in pursuing a more in-depth management and recovery process for your chronic illnesses.

Stay strong Spoonies,

Mark