Jetting the kids to and from daycare. Getting into a
fight with your significant other. Bills piling up sky high. You feel your
heart is racing, but you haven't had time to exercise in three months. Stress
is a part of everyday life and studies have indicated it's been on the rise for
the past 30 years. But how do you know if you're dealing with something more
serious?
Anxiety disorders are the most common class of mental
health issues, affecting approximately 1 in 5 Americans at any given time.
Studies continue to report that women are twice as likely as men to experience
anxiety. The National Comorbidity Survey found that lifetime prevalence rates
for any type of anxiety disorder were just over 30 percent for women and 19
percent for men. Furthermore, when women experience anxiety, they tend to
report great illness burden (e.g., missed work, number of visits to the ER or
doctor's office). So what's going on here? Why are women more likely to
experience anxiety, and should you be concerned?
There are many possible explanations for the reported
gender differences in anxiety disorders. The first concern has to do with the
social stigma of getting a diagnosis of anxiety (or any mental health issue for
that matter). Some professionals believe that men still experience a greater
stigma when it comes to reporting mental health issues and/or seeking
treatment. This raises the question of whether the reported gender differences
are accurate: Do women really experience more anxiety, or are they just more
likely to seek help as the stigma is not as great for women as it is for men?
If gender differences do exist (and there is some
research to back this), it appears that your biology may be to blame. Gender
differences in parts of the brain known as the amygdala and prefrontal cortex
might actually make women more prone to anxiety. There is also some evidence
that anxiety may be in part cyclical and hormonal in women as many women report
that anxiety worsens in the second half of their menstrual cycle as they
approach their period. Anxiety is also more common when women are
pregnant—again, researchers suspect hormones are to blame here.
How do you know if you have anxiety? There are 30
types of anxiety disorders in the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders), falling into three broad categories: anxiety disorders
(e.g., generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder), obsessive-compulsive and
related disorders (e.g., obsessive-compulsive disorder, body dysmorphic
disorder), and trauma- and stressor-related disorders (e.g., post-traumatic
stress disorder, adjustment disorder). Each condition within each of those
three broad categories has its own set of diagnostic criteria. While I don't
have space to detail the diagnostic criteria for all 28 of these disorders,
general criteria typically mention that the anxiety must be recurrent and
persistent, have been present most of the time for at least 6 months, and must
interfere with "normal" functioning.
So how do you know if it's just stress or if it's an
anxiety disorder? In general, if you've been experiencing anxiety, extreme
stress, or feelings of being overwhelmed most of the time for more than 6
months, it may be time to seek treatment, especially if your anxiety is
interfering with your daily life. While anxiety can be chronic or situational
in nature (e.g., caregiver stress, pregnancy) and/or related to major life
transitions (e.g., wedding, loss of a loved one), you do not have to suffer. If
you believe you have an anxiety disorder, please seek out a medical
professional for referral for diagnosis and treatment. Treatments are largely
effective and may include medication to help get the anxiety under control as
well as therapy to help the sufferer learn more effective coping strategies to
deal with whatever triggers her anxiety.
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