Anxiety Disorder

Anxiety… Uneasiness, tension in muscles, difficulty in focusing, early exhaustion, and almost spending the greater part of the day in worry and apprehension…

Under which symptoms does the P300 method help us in assessing psychiatric disorders? How is P300, a type of electro-physiological assessments, used if you have anxiety?

There are cases where anxiety is quite severe.  These situations are named anxiety crisis or attacks by the public. When considered from a medical perspective, the attack that is known the most among anxiety attacks is the panic attack.  While other attacks are relatively more tolerable, panic attacks create serious problems.

Stop everything you are doing, close your eyes, and think: you are walking towards a platform in a conference hall. Everyone’s looking at you in a crowded hall, where a great many academicians, your friends and students are present, as you are about the present your researches on a field you have been very successful at and you’ve been conducting studies for years. You go up there, and once you take a look at yourself, you realize that you are naked. Wouldn’t you run away from that place in shame? This short scenario does a good job in telling what people with social phobia experience.

Anxiety is one of the most important functions of our mental world. It is a clear expression that our brain is in need of something. Specific requirements, such as hunger, thirst, sexual needs, are felt through the presence of anxiety. We can say that anxiety is an absolute must for human life. It is a functional mechanism from an evolutionary perspective. So, how come anxiety becomes a disorder despite having such a vital importance in human life? When anxiety is acute and lasts for a long period of time and gets out of control, this situation signifies the anxiety disorder.

General characteristics of anxiety disorder in individuals: It is generally described as the state of feeling nervous, aggressive, troubled and uneasy without any reason, and in a way people cannot overcome in daily life. Physical manifestation of such mental depressions in the body is observed as sweating, shivering, shortness of breath, muscle contraction, dizziness and nausea. These symptoms, which are quite negatively reflected on social relationships, affect people’s daily lives, while making night sleep of the person problematic. All these indications signify anxiety disorders, rather than a normal anxiety in terms of the level of anxiety.