October Newsletter - Anxiety Alliance
Anxiety Alliance
Registered Charity No: 1115223
October 2006
This is the first Newsletter of Anxiety Alliance and we hope that it will be informative and enjoyable. We would like to receive any comments you may have regarding the newsletter, or any articles you would like published, after all this is your newsletter. Please send any comments or articles either to the registered address, or e-mail them to anxietyalliance@btinternet.com for inclusion in our future Newsletters.
Our Newsletter will be published four times a year and can either by e-mailed to you, or you can see it via our web page. For those of you who do not have access to a computer, we will of course send it by mail.
We are in the process of applying for funding to run a helpline that will only cost the callers the minimum amount, rather than a national call rate, and also to train more volunteers so that we can have the helpline available for a longer period of time. Eventually we hope to have a 24 hour helpline, because there is nothing worse than having a panic attack at night and not being able to talk to anyone about it! However at the present time we can only run the helpline from Monday to Fridays from 10am -4pm, but being on line sufferers or their family and friends can contact a volunteer and be sure of a prompt reply within 24 hours.
We are all keeping our fingers crossed that one of applications for funding will be positively answered.
The following article appeared on the Netdocotor.co.uk web site
Anxiety disorders found to be more common in women
Women are significantly more likely than men to suffer from an anxiety disorder or phobia, a new study from Harvard Medical School reveals.
According to the research, women are twice as likely as men to have a panic disorder, where they experience uncontrollable panic attacks, and are three times more likely to suffer from agoraphobia, forcing them to avoid public spaces.
Women also appear to be at a significantly increased risk of suffering post traumatic stress disorder, and are slightly more likely to have a specific phobia compared with men.
The researchers involved say that now intend to investigate possible biological or hormonal factors that could be responsible for the difference between the sexes.
One possibility, scientists say, is the role of sex hormones such as oestrogen, which is known to interact with serotonin, a neurotransmitter molecule found in the brain and known to be associated with mood and emotion.
However, further research is still needed in order to understand the nature of this relationship.
© Adfero Ltd
This article was taken from the BBC web site regarding the problems that arising in schools at the moment.
Schools are struggling to cope with increasing numbers of pupils with mental health problems, a study says.
The survey commissioned by the NASUWT teachers' union found teachers often had difficulty identifying pupils with problems like anxiety and depression.
Inadequate support for teachers affected the well-being and school work of other pupils in the class, it found.
The NASUWT wants to see more training for teachers in how to deal with the children concerned.
The report concluded that information about pupils' problems were not being shared between schools, or even within schools.
And teachers who deal with the needs of pupils with special educational needs (Sencos) told researchers they received no specific training on mental health.
The study was conducted by the research department at Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust in London.
"Teachers are concerned about the impact arising from the inadequate support of pupils with mental health needs," the trust's report said.
"There are repercussions for the child who needs the special provision.
"Teachers believe they cannot meet the child's needs, provide them with equal opportunity, help them achieve their potential, or help them before their problems become so serious that they will impact on the rest of their lives."
Teachers' morale
The report warned that this also had "a powerful and detrimental impact on teachers".
"It can make their job very difficult, lower their 'job satisfaction' and more importantly is likely to affect their own psychological well-being.
"In addition, teachers argue that inadequate support negatively affects other children whose education and mental or physical well-being may suffer as a result of that particular pupil's behaviour."
A spokesman for the Department for Education and Skills said they had already delivered specialist training to staff who have particular responsibilities for children with behavioural, emotional or social difficulties.
"We are also looking to develop targeted support for more schools to help them identify and tackle behavioural problems due to mental health, including referral to more specialist help," he said.
The department said it was working to expand Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services so that more specialist help and advice was available where needed.
The following article was again taken from Netdoctor.co.uk
Genetic make-up 'affects anti-depression treatment'
How well a person responds to antidepressants could be dependent on inherent genetic variations, a new study says.
Research published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Jama) says that the reason why drug treatments fail to treat up to two-fifths of patients could be due to a lack of pharmacogenetic prediction, the study of genetic factors relating to drug response.
The scientists from the Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea, said that one way to possibly make antidepressant treatment more efficient is to increase medical practitioners' knowledge of what variations in genes (polymorphisms) have upon effectiveness.
Today's report was based around the study of 241 patients from South Korea suffering from depression, with 136 given treatments of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a type of antidepressant, and the remaining 105 treated with norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (NRIs), another class of antidepressant.
The researchers found that significant differences existed between the effectiveness of the drugs in treating symptoms of depression, with individuals possessing the GG polymorphism of the Net gene having an 88.3 per cent success rate when treated with NRIs.
In comparison, those given SSRIs had a successful treatment rate of 58.7 per cent.
Dr Hyeran Kim, lead study author, writes that the "study demonstrates that the responses to antidepressants with different targets have significant associations with homologous monoamine transporter gene polymorphisms".
"Confirmation of these preliminary findings would permit refined pharmacogenetic selection of antidepressant treatment," he adds.
© Adfero Ltd
The following is taken from ‘Coping with Anxiety' by Edmund J Bourne PhD, available from Anxiety Alliance.
Varieties of Anxiety
You can better understand the nature of anxiety by looking at both what it is and what it is not. For example, anxiety can be distinguished from fear in several ways. When you are afraid, your fear is usually directed toward some concrete, external object or situation that is immediately present. You might fear not meeting a deadline, failing an exam or being rejected by someone you want to please. When you experience anxiety, on the other hand, you frequently can't specify what it is you're anxious about.
Rather than fearing a specific object or situation, you may imagine some danger that is not immediately present and only remotely likely. You may be anxious about the future, about your overall safety or security, or about going forward in the face of uncertainty. Or you might be frightened about losing control of yourself or some situations. Or you might feel a vague anxiety about something bad happening when you face a specific challenge.
Anxiety affects your whole being. It is a psychological, behavioural and psychological reaction all at once. On a physiological level anxiety may include bodily reactions such as rapid heartbeat, muscle tension, queasiness, dry mouth, or sweating. On a behavioural level, it can paralyze your ability to act, express yourself, or deal with certain everyday situations. Psychologically, anxiety is a subjective state of apprehension and uneasiness. In its most extreme form, it can cause you to feel detached from yourself and even fearful of dying or going crazy.
The fact that anxiety can affect you on physiological, behavioural and psychological levels has important implications for your attempts to cope. A complete programme of coping with anxiety must address all three components. You need to learn how to reduce physiological reactivity, eliminate avoidance behaviour, and change self-talk that perpetuates a state pf apprehension and worry.
Anxiety can appear in different forms and at different levels of intensity. It can range from a mere twinge of uneasiness to a fully-blown panic attack marked by heart palpitations, trembling, sweating, dizziness, disorientation and terror. Anxiety that is not connected with any particular situation, that comes out of the blue, is called ‘free floating anxiety' or in more severe instances, a spontaneous ‘panic attack'
If your anxiety arises only in response to a specific situation it is called ‘situational anxiety' or ‘phobic anxiety'. Situation anxiety is different from everyday worries in that it tends to be out of proportion or unrealistic. If you have any disproportional apprehension about driving on motorways, going to the doctor, or socializing, this may qualify as situational anxiety. Situational anxiety becomes phobic when you actually start to avoid the situation; if you give up driving on motorways, going to the doctors or socializing altogether. In other words, phobic anxiety is a situational anxiety that includes persistent avoidance of the situation.
Often anxiety can be brought on merely by thinking about a particular situation. When you feel distressed about what might happen when you have to face a difficult or even phobic situation, you are experiencing what is called anticipatory anxiety. In its milder forms, anticipatory anxiety is indistinguishable from ordinary worry. Worrying can be defined as anticipating unpleasant consequences about a future situation. Bu sometimes anticipatory anxiety becomes intense enough to be anticipatory panic.
There is an important difference between spontaneous anxiety (or panic) and anticipatory anxiety (or panic). Spontaneous anxiety tends to come out of the blue, peaks to a high level very rapidly, and then subsides gradually. The peak is usually reached within five minutes, followed by a gradual tapering-off period of up to an hour or more. Anticipatory anxiety, on the other hand, tends to build up more gradually in response to encountering or simply thinking about a threatened situation, and may last longer. You may worry yourself into a frenzy about something for an hour or more and then let got of the worry as you tire and find something else to occupy your mind.
Our next Newsletter is due in January 2007. If you would like to see information on anything in particular, or have an article you would like published, then please send it to the registered address as soon as possible for inclusion in the January edition.
We look forward to hearing from you.
