Restless Legs Syndrome & Anxiety

Video Transcript

"I'm Dr. David Thomas. I'm a practicing psychotherapist with the Whitford-Thomas Group in Tampa, Florida to discuss Restless Leg Syndrome and anxiety. First Restless Leg Syndrome is a neurological disorder often times experienced more than not in the legs but in any of the extremities you can experience this disorder as a syndrome and to describe the Restless Leg Syndrome is to kind of imagine if you will a lot of numbing, discomfort, paint. Some people even liken or describe it as bugs inside the, underneath the skin and naturally if you have those type of sensations occurring especially in your legs your tendency is to want to kind of get up and move around because when Restless Leg Syndrome is experienced the most is when you lie down or you sit down and you rest the legs or the limbs so it is at that time there is a tendency to want to shake the legs, walk around to minimize the symptoms. Obviously if you have something so overt such as Restless Leg Syndrome you begin to get over focused on it, begin to get uptight about it, begin to worry, concern yourself which are kind of the beginning, kind of precursors for anxiety. Interestingly anxiety at that point is all driven by thought which most anxiety is but certainly at that point after you experience Restless Leg Syndrome the tendency to get kind of uptight or worry or concern yourself about the syndrome is pretty significant. What do you do about it? Certainly there is medications that can treat Restless Leg Syndrome but from the thinking component so you don't create an anxiety about having the syndrome you certainly want to seek out some type of therapies preferably with a cognitive behavior therapist who really focuses greatly on thought changing feelings and behavior. Hopefully this information that I provided to you has been helpful with regard to Restless Leg Syndrome. From Tampa, Florida, I'm Dr. David Thomas."