Throughout our lives, all of us will have experienced feelings of anxiety at some point, whether it’s taking part in a nerve-racking job interview, sitting an important test or even heading to a medical appointment.
But while these feelings of nervousness and worry are often short-lived and resolve once the moment has passed, some people, just like personal trainer and TV star Chloe Madeley, suffer from a far more severe form of anxiety known as Generalised Anxiety Disorder, which means she is left feeling anxious constantly without any obvious trigger.
Opening up about her battle with the illness on social media as she explained her recent absence from Instagram, Chloe wrote: “I suppose I’ll title this post “Slowly but Surely Floating out of Depletion and Defeat.”
"This post started as an explanation as to why I stopped posting about health and fitness for so long, but ended up somewhere different…
“For starters, I should probably say that I still coach pretty much 7 days a week, online and PT, as well as having 2 health and fitness podcasts, so talking and writing about it is still the dominant factor of my day to day life and work."
"And because of the above, it would be fair to say that the idea of coming onto social media and repeating the things I’d been talking about all day / week? Well, quite frankly, it felt impossible. There’s no other word for it. It felt impossible to me. "
The star then continued: "It crept up on me very slowly, in hindsight well over a year, but by the end of August of this year, I got pretty bad burn out.
"Bodhi became my sole priority and source of joy, but beyond her, absolutely everything felt impossible.
"And it makes sense, because in the space of 2 years I had moved across the country, bought, refurbished and furnished my first house, been reunited with a very busy social life, had a baby by emergency c-section, returned to work 8 weeks later, filmed a reality tv show, and began separating from my husband after what was, to be totally honest, the hardest summer of both of our lives."
She then added: "I’ve had mental health battles before, being diagnosed with GAD in my early twenties, so I knew there was a problem bubbling under the surface and was quick to get myself back into therapy.
“To be honest, there is more to this story and there were a number of factors that lead me back to where I am now (and have been since the end of October), but I’ll talk about them another time.”
But what exactly is Generalised Anxiety Disorder and what can be done to help manage the condition?
What is GAD?
Generalised Anxiety Disorder is a long term mental health condition which causes sufferers to feel anxiety constantly due to a wide range of situations and issues, rather than surrounding a specific event or concern.
This leads suffers to feel anxious most days of their life, and for several hours of the day – something which means it can even be difficult for them to remember the last time they felt relaxed at all.
As soon as one anxious thought is resolved, another may appear about a different issue, meaning the condition is constantly evolving throughout the day, with very little reprieve offered in between.
What are the symptoms of the condition?
Although GAD is a psychological condition that is typically characterised by feeling restless or worried, it can also cause physical symptoms too, such as dizziness or even heart palpitations when someone is in that heightened anxiety state.
In addition, the condition can also make it difficult to sleep well, or contribute to difficulties with concentrating, even on things that the person knows they usually enjoy.
What causes GAD?
Although many theories have been shared about what causes Generalised Anxiety Disorder, so far there has been no conclusive answer, with experts believing that a combination of several different factors may play a part in someone’s likelihood to develop the condition.
These factors include:
- The genes they inherited from their parents.
- Having a history of stressful or traumatic experiences, for example bullying, domestic violence of child abuse.
- Suffering from a painful long term health condition such as arthritis.
- Having a history of drug or alcohol misuse.
However, some people develop GAD for no identifiable reason at all.
How common is GAD?
Although seldom talked about, Generalised Anxiety Disorder is actually a very common condition, with around 6 in ever 100 people diagnosed with the illness every single week in the UK.
While the condition can affect both men and women, it appears more often in women, with the most common age for people to be diagnosed being between 35 and 55 years old.
How is it treated?
Treatment for GAD is largely separated into two options, medication and talking therapy, but both are often used in tandem together to help give sufferers the best chance of managing their condition.
For talking therapies, patients will undergo a special kind of treatment with a mental health professional called cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT), which helps them to adapt the way they think and behave in the hopes of developing coping strategies for living with anxiety.
In addition, for medication, patients may be treated with a specific type of antidepressant, called a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), which increases the serotonin level in the brain.
Serotonin is a neurotransmitter (a messenger chemical that carries signals between nerve cells in the brain). It's thought to have a good influence on mood, emotion and sleep – three things which can be deeply affected by GAD.
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