Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is characterized as a person who has excessive and uncontrollable worry. It can feel like a sense of dread or general fear something bad could happen. People can worry excessively about current real issues or future oriented problems that may never happen. Common themes of worry are about health, safety, finances, relationships or performance. Children can worry about academic or athletic performance, relationships with friends, or the safety of themselves or their loved ones. It is common to see those with GAD having chronic headaches, stomach aches or muscle aches, many have difficulty sleeping and find worry can be worse when it’s time to fall asleep or the middle of the night.

Worry used to be thought of as a personality trait, we often hear “I’m just a worrier” but research has shown that it is cognitive phenomenon that can be impairing to one’s life when it becomes too much. When it starts to interfere with one’s daily functioning and increased suffering, it’s important to recognize this as a mental health condition that can be treated with CBT.

See link to take you to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America page to learn more about GAD.

https://adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/generalized-anxiety-disorder-gad