How to Prevent General Anxiety Disorder

You may not be able to prevent general anxiety disorder, but you can prevent it from ruining your life. It is difficult to specify clear prevention strategies for general anxiety disorder because there is no single dominant theory about what causes it. However, several treatment approaches have been shown to be effective in reducing and managing the effects of general anxiety disorder.

Things You'll Need

• Physician
• Therapist

Instructions

Prevent the Onset of General Anxiety Disorder Before It Starts

1. Establish positive routines to maintain a calm, relaxed outlook on life if you believe you may be at risk for general anxiety disorder due to genetics, environment or family history.

2. Engage in routines such as a daily walk, yoga or meditation.

3. Focus on your own thought processes and place an emphasis on staying with interpretations, beliefs and assumptions that tend to be helpful in brightening your mood and inspiring you to engage in positive behaviors and activities.

Get Treatment to Prevent General Anxiety Disorder From Ruining Your Life

1. Contact your doctor or a mental health professional about general anxiety disorder if your worries and anxieties seem severe and impossible to control or if they are causing with difficulty in work, relationships, sleeping, remembering things or concentrating on what you are doing.

2. Seek a formal diagnosis of general anxiety disorder from your primary care physician or psychiatrist as a prerequisite to insurance coverage of treatment and the possible prescription of medications for the disorder.

3. Find a therapist with whom you are comfortable discussing issues that come up in your daily life and how you interpret the things that others say and do. Getting another's perspective can help you interpret other people's behaviors so that they do not contribute to your anxiety and symptoms.

4. Ask your therapist about the medication strategies that are available to help lessen the destructive impact of general anxiety disorder symptoms on your ability to function at home, at work and in relationships. The most common medications prescribed for long-term treatment are SSRIs such as ****, Zoloft or Prozac.

5. Get the treatment that is right for you and is most likely to prevent general anxiety disorder symptoms from making you dysfunctional. Over half of all patients experience improvement in their general anxiety disorder symptoms within 3 weeks of beginning appropriate therapy. At the 9-month mark, 77 percent of all patients report improvement.

Tips & Warnings

• Although there may be no sure way to prevent general anxiety disorder, it is definitely possible to prevent some of the most debilitating and destructive symptoms of the disorder once it has been diagnosed. Several treatment approaches have been demonstrated to be successful in diminishing symptoms and helping individuals who suffer from general anxiety disorder to keep their lives on a positive track.