Breaking The Cycle Of Anxiety Disorder

Many people with anxiety suffer from overwhelming feelings of worry, dread, and fear. Some even struggle with physical symptoms such as fatigue, insomnia, shortness of breath, and panic attacks.

In fact, the National Alliance On Mental Illness reports that more than 40 million adults in the United States have an anxiety disorder. Additionally, about 7% of children aged 3 to 17 also experience issues with anxiety.

While many people begin to experience symptoms before the age of 21, anxiety can happen to anyone at any time, and can present differently from person to person.

The Drake Institute understands the complexity of treating anxiety disorders, and how every patient has their own unique history or circumstances. For over 40 years, we have offered non-invasive, drug-free treatment designed to address the needs of patients suffering from anxiety.

In this article, we’ll discuss the cycle of anxiety, how to break it, and how our non-drug treatment protocols help patients suffering from anxiety.

What is Anxiety?

Generalized Anxiety Disorder is a chronic condition that causes persistent anxiousness, fear, and worry. While most people experience some anxiety during certain life events or stressful situations, chronic anxiety can be quite debilitating. In addition, there are a number of DSM-recognized disorders that require professional treatment, including:

• Panic Disorder & Panic Attacks
• Social Anxiety Disorder
• Separation Anxiety Disorder
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
• Selective Mutism
• Specific Phobias
• Agoraphobia

Symptoms of Anxiety

Symptoms of generalized anxiety and related disorders can manifest both mentally and physically. People who suffer from anxiety disorder can experience a variety of symptoms including:

• Fatigue
• Headaches
• Irritability
• Panic Attacks
• Muscle tension
• High blood pressure
• Shortness of breath
• Difficulty sleeping
• Excessive fear or worry
• Bruxism (tooth grinding)
• Dizziness or light-headedness
• Heart palpitations or tachycardia
• Digestive and gastrointestinal dysfunction
• Somatic symptoms like sweating and nausea

Anxiety symptoms can be experienced differently from one person to the next, and the level of severity can range from mild to severe. While chronic anxiety symptoms are persistent, they can be exacerbated by stressful events. When this occurs, additional clinical intervention may be necessary.

The Anxiety Cycle

Anxiety cycles often begin with negative or distorted thought patterns, such as catastrophizing. The brain’s limbic system can become overreactive, whereby your perceptions are being mis-colored by past traumatic experiences. In severe cases, the "fight or flight" response takes over, leaving you psychophysiologically trapped in a state of heightened fear and distress.

Your inner experience of anxiety or fear is real, and though it feels like you’re under threat, often there is no actual danger. There may be problems to deal with, but it’s not life threatening, though your body may be going into an alarm state because the limbic system has hijacked your frontal lobe or rational thinking.

In this state, your thoughts are likely to focus on and exaggerate perceived threats, worst-case scenarios, or self-doubt.

How To Break the Cycle of Anxiety

Breaking the cycle of anxiety is facilitated with professional help.  

When we help patients improve their brain regulation, they’re not as vulnerable to previous triggers that would have activated anxiety linked to trauma-induced abnormal brain functioning patterns. An individual is no longer so vulnerable to experiencing challenges or triggers through brain functioning that is locked in a hypervigilant or fight or flight state. This makes the individual stronger and more resilient to facing the everyday challenges of life and work.  

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) can be used as an adjunctive therapy to our biofeedback and brain map-guided neurofeedback and neurostimulation treatment programs.

Engaging in healthy routines with regular exercise, good sleep hygiene, and healthy nutrition is also secondarily supportive of our treatment program, enabling patients to optimize self-regulation developed from our biofeedback and neurofeedback treatment.

When to Seek Professional Help To Break The Cycle Of Anxiety

People suffering from severe and chronic anxiety typically need professional help to break the cycle and significantly improve or resolve their symptoms. Seeking help is essential if your symptoms become persistent or begin to interfere with daily life. The Drake Institute’s treatment can provide the tools and guidance you need to break the cycle and regain control of your life.

Drake Institute’s Non-Drug Treatment For Anxiety

Treatment for anxiety disorder usually includes psychotherapy and medication. However, for over 40 years, the Drake Institute has treated anxiety and stress disorders using advanced, non-drug technologies including biofeedback, qEEG brain mapping, brain map-guided neurofeedback, and neurostimulation.

Here’s how our treatment works:

First, we use Biofeedback to measure physiologic indicators of anxiety, including muscle tension, hand temperature, galvanic skin response, and heart rate variability.

Next, we develop a personalized treatment program designed to help the patient reduce tension levels to normal. Our treatment provides real-time visual and auditory feedback to teach you how to reduce abnormal tension levels, restoring a healthy physiological balance to your body and brain.

While traditional relaxation techniques like meditation may help you feel calmer, they cannot confirm whether or not you’re reaching the stable and deep levels of psychophysical relaxation that optimize healing. Our clinical biofeedback treatment can help patients confirm that they are consistently reaching deeper levels of relaxation needed to break up stress patterns that lead to symptoms and illness. By developing self-regulation ability and skills, this can create lasting changes in how your body responds to stress.

Unlike medication, which only works while you're taking it, our treatment helps you develop lifelong skills you can use to reduce anxiety via self-regulation techniques. In short, we will teach you to shift out of “fight or flight” mode naturally so that you can maintain better emotional balance and prevent anxiety from taking you over again and disrupting your autonomic nervous system.

Contact The Drake Institute Today!

Our comprehensive non-drug treatment helps address the psychophysiologic reactions that produce anxiety, allowing you to reduce or resolve symptoms without medication.

If you or a loved one are experiencing anxiety, please call us at 1-800-700-4233 or fill out our free consultation form to get started.