Matthew Minarik is the founder of Rx 4 Mental Health, a subsidiary of Restora Health telemedicine. Matt has always had a sympathetic heart for those suffering from mental health issues, highlighted even more post pandemic. In the following article, Matthew Minarik delves into the complexities of anxiety disorders, and provides suggestions to manage and cope with the symptoms.
Everybody experiences feelings of anxiety here or there, but when it causes significant distress or impacts day-to-day activities, it becomes an anxiety disorder. As humans are complex beings, there are multiple types of said disorders, and learning the differences can help patients cope with these feelings and regain control over the lives.
Matthew Minarik says that from generalized anxiety disorder to health anxiety to panic disorders to separation anxiety, these mental health conditions exist in many forms, as industry professionals can attest.
Matthew Minarik Describes Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, GAD affects 3.1% of the US population. Often occurring with depression, it’s the most common type of anxiety disorder, characterized by excessive worrying about different events/activities, feelings of hyper-alertness, muscle tension, and sweating.
Coping Mechanisms
- Matthew Minarik explains that cutting back on drinking caffeinated beverages and quitting smoking helps. Both nicotine and caffeine can worsen symptoms.
- Learn triggers to gain clarity and begin being able to better manage stress in these situations.
- Eat a balanced diet as foods have a direct impact on physical and emotional health.
- Breathe deeply from the abdomen to slow the heart rate and reduce feelings of anxiety.
Panic Disorder
Matthew Minarik says that as the name suggests, the main symptom is recurring panic attacks, which elicit one or more of the following symptoms:
- Heart palpitations
- Numbness/tingling
- Fear of dying/losing control/detached
- Chills/hot flashes
- Chest pain
- Shortness of breath
- Shaking
- Sweating
- Abdominal pains/nausea
- Feeling of choking
Due to the severity of the symptoms, many people believe they’re having a heart attack or other medical emergency. Matthew Minarik explains that these attacks can last for mere moments or hours, sparking for unexpected and expected reasons.
Coping Mechanisms
- Make coping cards that detail realistic thoughts about panic attacks. People can carry them wherever they go, reading the cards to remind them that such feelings won’t last forever.
- Challenge catastrophizing by consider how bad it really is, whether it’s a horror or a hassle, and if it will matter in a week or a year from the moment.
- Do progressive muscle relaxation to mute the feelings of a panic attack.
- Calm deep breathing can relieve the physical symptoms associated with a panic attack.
Social Anxiety Disorder
Formerly known as social phobia, social anxiety disorder is the persistent fear of being judged by others, alongside discomfort when interacting with people. Matthew Minarik notes that whether intensely afraid of saying something wrong or feeling embarrassed, the anxiety can occur in almost any situation, causing individuals to avoid communicating with anybody bar a few close friends/relatives.
Coping Mechanisms
- Get regular exercise, avoid caffeine, and eat healthy foods.
- Ensure supervisors or teachers know about social anxiety disorder so people can receive the necessary workplace or in-school accommodations.
- Face fears by starting small like telling a story to a close friend group or making a toast at dinner with close family.
- Practice deep breathing to relieve social stress.
- Reduce negative thinking by challenging them.
Separation Anxiety Disorder
Characterized by excessive fear/anxiousness about separating from specific people beyond the appropriate level of the individual’s age, separation anxiety disorder prevents people from functioning properly. Matthew Minarik says that they may be constantly worried about losing their loved ones, have nightmares about separation, and/or be reluctant to sleep away from home.
Coping Mechanisms
- Replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts.
- Focus on the fact that feelings of separation anxiety are temporary.
- Keep busy with things like walking, finding somebody to talk to, meditating, and spending time on a hobby.
- Join a separation anxiety support group.
- Schedule a specific period of time, i.e., say 30 minutes, to be away from all media screens.
Health Anxiety
People with health anxiety persistently worry they’re ill or that they’re going to become ill. In this case, physical symptoms can replicate illnesses which are mistaken for serious medical concerns by the person with the disorder. Matthew Minarik reports that other symptoms include constantly checking the body for lumps or pain, seeking reassurance from medical professionals that they aren’t ill, and obsessively seeking health-related information on the internet.
Coping Mechanisms
- Challenge health anxiety thoughts by writing a list of worries and pairing them with something a balanced friend or relative may say.
- Slow down and reduce things that make health anxiety worse to return to a level state gradually.
- Focus on the environment by following the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 mindfulness technique.
- Understand self-diagnosing is an unhelpful activity.
- Again, ‘move’ as this demonstrates to the subconscious mind, the overall good health and well-being of your body.
Conclusion
Finally, according to psychologist, Dr. Ross Ellenhorn, have faith in yourself and have hope. Hope helps us move us through uncertainty to a specific goal. Studies have shown that having faith in yourself and having hope puts a definitive picture on a good future and takes the focus away from the anxiety symptoms and changes it toward a positive goal. Just that shift in perspective can have dramatically positive outcomes. Whereas symptoms such as anxiety are a belief in forces outside your life that you may believe are outside your control. Words like ‘anxiety’ and ‘stress’ are made-up words by psychologists and they have very little meaning. But hope has meaning attached to it, ‘I am hoping to (fill in the blank like, ‘get this job’, etc.). Not having hope and using words that have no real meaning tend to lead to more stress and anxiety. So, according to Ellenhorn, try to say to yourself; ‘How do I hope for things and how do I deal with the despair of not getting them?’ Hope is an attitude that you are placing some importance on a specific thing, and you start moving toward it. When you hope for something specific, two things happen. First, you recognize that it is important, and secondly, you recognize that you lack it. The danger in this is that you now admit that there is a risk in not getting it. But to beat non-medical anxiety, one must make changes.
Dr. Charles Snyder created a theory on hope and came up ‘Snyder’s Adult Hope Scale. Look into this and delve into faith in yourself and hope for something specific. And if you find, you cannot get to a point where you can do that, then Matthew Minarik recommends www.Rx4MentalHealth.com – the nation’s most accessible and affordable Mental Health program. We hope this helps.
