Beh 225

Anxiety is a disorder that affects many people in different ways.   Anxiety is characterized as an emotional state that is accompanied by subjective behavioral and physical features.   Subjective features included dread, worry, nervousness, tenseness, and fear of losing control.   Physical features of anxiety reflect arousal and are identified by sweating, trembling, pounding or racing heart, elevated blood pressure, and faintness.   There are five major classifications of anxiety disorders one of which is panic disorders.   Panic disorder is the recurrent experience of attacks of extreme anxiety.   It affects five percent of people and is often a disabling condition.   People with panic disorder usually have panic attacks major symptom.   These attacks are sudden and can be overwhelming experiences of terror or fear without reason.   People that have panic attacks suffer symptoms such as the feeling of doom, chest pain, sweating, and the fear of losing control or dying.   Panic attacks can occur several times a week are very unpredictable and can with normal activities and work.   Although panic attacks last only a few minutes they are powerful enough to cause great fear.   People associate panic attacks with certain events or with certain places, this can cause people to use unhealthy methods to try and suppress them.   For example, a person that experiences anxiety or panic attack crossing a bridge they are more incline to avoid crossing a bridge at all cost.   This avoidance can cause more anxiety to develop becoming a phobia of bridges or crossing bodies of water.    

    It may be difficult for doctors to diagnose panic disorder because the symptoms associate with panic disorder such as chest pain and shortness of breath are also associated with potentially more serious conditions.   Panic symptoms develop through internal phobia sensations that drive avoidance behavior. (Waters & Oliver, 2005)   Proper diagnosis and treatment with medication and therapy can enhance the...