Do you feel angsty when you wake up some mornings?

You feel something is amiss, or about to go wrong. But you don’t know what it is.

It burdens your heart but you can’t express it. What’s worse is you don’t have anybody to express it to,

I do. And my first time got me really scared.

Thoughts of a heart attack danced before my mind.

I felt a slight pressure pushing against my chest, breathing was difficult and painful, and my heart was going boom, boom, boom.

With haste, I immediately drove to the nearest hospital. The results came in after almost an hour of the usual tests. And the verdict was…

My heart was good but my mind was running wild. It was nothing but a severe case of anxiety.

Anxiety is your body’s natural response to stress. While anxiety is a normal reaction to stressful events, the elderly are more prone to it because of the various issues that come with aging.

Here are six of the most common:

1.  Mental Health

Mental health is the level of psychological well-being or an absence of mental illness. It is the state of someone who is “functioning at a satisfactory level of emotional and behavioral adjustment”. – Wikipedia

With old age comes a change in lifestyles. While most seniors handle this transition with ease, a few (about 15% of adults aged 60) struggle with it, consequently affecting their mental health.

Among the stressors that can cause mental deterioration among the elderly are:

• Retirement
• Depression
• Dementia
• Change in environment
• Effects of medications
• Loneliness and isolation
• Loss of a loved one
• Physical disability
• Chronic illnesses
• Alcohol or substance abuse

2.  Physical health

If there is a scorecard on physical health, most seniors will fail. According to the National Council on Aging, 92 percent have at least one chronic condition, and 77 percent have at least two.

Physical health issues greatly impair your ability to perform daily tasks and other activities like sports. People with physical health issues can’t get by without taking several medications a day to keep them going. Often, they need someone to help them with ordinary activities like eating or personal hygiene..

A myriad of physical health issues can befall to  people in this age range, including you and me. The most common are:

• Arthritis
• Diabetes
• Osteoporosis
• Heart disease
• Cancer
• Respiratory diseases

Most of these can be managed to allow you live happy and productive life.

3.  Health care costs

Politicians and medical practitioners define “health care costs” differently but this article is not going to give you a giant headache. So to cut through the chaff, it’s going to make it simpler.

“Health care costs are out-of-the-pocket expenses or the amount of money you regularly spend to maintain your health and overall well-being.”

For example, I am taking multi-vitamins and an anti-hypertension drug on a daily basis. They represent a portion of my health care costs, not counting tennis club membership and other things to keep me physically fit.

This amount can be huge even if you are covered by Medicare. A study done by the Center for Retirement at Boston College shows that an average retiree spends around $ 4,300.00 on out-of-the-pocket health care costs per year.

4.  Financial security

Financial security refers to the peace of mind you feel when you aren’t worried about money matters; that you have enough money to cover your daily needs and emergencies well into the near future.

As in physical health, a lot of seniors will fail in the financial health category. Over 25 million Americans aged 60 + are living below the Federal Poverty Level ($ 29,425 per year per person).

They have issues on housing and health care bills, inadequate nutrition, access to transportation and diminished savings. And things due to normal rise in cost of living, their difficulties are expected to go from bad to worse.

5.  Elder abuse

Elder abuse is the single or repetitive lack of action in a relationship or trust, and which causes harm or distress to an older person.

It includes physical, emotional, sexual, financial exploitation or neglect of their welfare by people who are directly responsible for the care of the elderly. This is a growing menace as most of the victims would rather suffer than report them. In fact, more than half a million reports of elder abuse reach authorities every year.

6.  Loneliness and social isolation

Loneliness is a negative feeling resulting from unmet social needs in terms of quantity and quality, while social isolation is total or very limited social contact; to be cut off from your normal social network.

Social isolation and loneliness are often taken as the same. They are not. On one hand, loneliness is temporary and is often a choice, but social isolation is caused by factors like mobility, health issues, no access to services or community activities, or a total lack of communication with friends, family, and acquaintances.

Both are bad for the elderly. Isolation can result in serious chronic diseases such as lung disease, arthritis, and mobility problems, and loneliness can make some seniors engage in unhealthy habits like overeating, drug abuse, excessive alcohol consumption, and smoking.

Everybody wants to finish well – whatever we are doing. Retirement is no less. We all want to retire in good fashion – healthy, financially independent and with a vibrant social circle.

Things, however, don’t always turn out the way we want them to. No matter how good your plans are, these old-age issues can derail them any time. The above are just a few of them.

If not handled or managed well, your life will be a string of stressful events. It will be like battling one of those Australian brush fires. Instead of enjoying old age, you will wallow in a deep mire of suffering and regret.

Fortunately, that doesn’t have to be. The Internet is full of resources you can use to achieve your retirement dreams. This blog is one of them.

You can spend precious time searching them out or have them delivered to your email on a regular basis if you subscribe to this blog. The choice is yours.

But remember this – you need not walk the lonely path alone.

Image: Lovin’LIfe after 50

~oOo~

The post Six Old-age Issues You Need to Know first appeared on Age With Charm.

Anxiety disorder is a common mental illness characterized by feelings of uneasiness, worry, and fear. While anxiety can happen to anyone if you have an anxiety disorder, you will feel an inappropriate and unreasonable amount of agitation, worry, and fear.

It comes next to depression as one of the most common mental health issues among the elderly. In fact, they are closely interrelated and as difficult to diagnose. According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), about 50% of seniors with depression also suffer from an anxiety disorder – according to the CDC.

There are several types of anxiety disorders, i.e., generalized anxiety disorder, phobias, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Of the six, generalized anxiety disorder and phobias are the most common among seniors. This article, therefore, shall focus on these two so you will know what they are, their symptoms and how to cope with them.

Read on…

Generalized anxiety disorder

General anxiety disorder causes worry or fear that gets worse over time. It will affect your social life, your job, and day-to-day activities. Seniors with severe cases of GAD become withdrawn and reclusive.

The most common symptoms of GAD are:

• Excessive, uncontrollable worry/anxiety
• Edginess, nervousness, or restlessness
• Chronic fatigue or tires out fast
• Irritable or low-fused
• Poor sleep quality or difficulty falling/staying asleep
• Tensed muscles

Generalized anxiety disorder is caused by any or a combination of the following:

• A history of anxiety in the family
• Prolonged exposure to stressful situations like an illness or combat duty
• Excessive use of caffeine or tobacco
• Abuse when young.

How to cope with generalized anxiety disorder

Anxiety can increase your heart rate, causes palpitation and chest pains. It increases the risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, and other coronary events.

It is necessary, therefore to deal with it deals you in.

Here’s how…

1.  Don’t withdraw

When you start feeling anxious, don’t withdraw from people or from a crowd. Rather, stay put and get involved. Join activities that can foster a sense of belonging, of giving you some purpose.

2.  Talk to someone

Don’t go at it alone. Find someone to talk to – a friend, brother or sister, your confessor on anybody open to idle talk. When you do, don’t talk about your problems but anything to take your mind off your anxiety. Besides, nobody is interested in your problems.

A good conversation is therapeutic. It makes you forget your problems, it feeds the mind and is a learning experience.

3.  Laugh

How are phobias developed

I developed claustrophobia from some movies I saw as a young child but I could not pin a cause for my fear of heights. And maybe you, too, will find it difficult to recall the cause(s) of your phobia. At any rate, phobias are triggered by any or some of the following:

• Unforgettable incidents or traumas. Having been stuck in an elevator in the past will most likely make you fearful of using an elevator again. Images of the past will come rushing in just be the mere mention of it.
• Learned responses. As a child, I and some friends loved to shoot house lizards with rubberband-propelled darts. Images of those we killed and buried somehow developed in me a fear of dead animals – including people.  Not dead lizards only. I fear anything that slithers like snakes and other reptiles.
• Genetics. Some research shows that phobias are inherited, too. It means you are more prone to develop a phobia that exists in the family.
• Long-term stress. This can cause feelings of anxiety and depression, and reduce your ability to cope with particular situations. If repeated regularly, over the long haul, a phobia may set in. It’s kind of “here we go again,” kind of thing.

How to cope with a phobia

We all have phobias of one form or another. That’s perfectly normal. They are nothing to be ashamed of or be embarrassed about.

It becomes abnormal when they drive you with fearful anxiety; throw your world upside down. If they do, then these practical tips will help you cope with them:

 1.  Avoidance

I have a phobia for heights. Luckily, I am not afraid to fly. What I dread most is to stand on a ledge of a tall building, looking down.

How to beat the phobia Keep away from the ledge and instead of looking down, enjoy the panorama of the surrounding landscape. This will take your mind off your fear.

2.  Increase your tolerance

This involves gradually exposing yourself to the situation you are fearful about, i.e., heights, bugs, crowded streets, then withdrawing when your anxiety level builds up.

Keep this cycle of exposure and withdrawal until you get over your phobia. Some allergies are treated this way. Over time, your phobia will just fade away like a wisp of smoke.

3.  Meet it head-on

While increasing your tolerance is gradual acclimatization to the source of your phobia, meeting it head-on is facing your phobia directly in the face and see who blinks first.

While this may seem to be fraught with danger, but this is the best and fastest way of removing a source of your anxiety.

4.  Join a support group

Oftentimes, you may feel weak and powerless to cope with your phobia alone. You can get over this state of helplessness by joining the group.

A support group can help you realize that you are not alone; that so many people out there are are also driven to anxiety over one or more phobias. A group makes you feel empowered and accepted and it is a good hedge against depression.

5.  Try medication

If nothing of the above works, try medication – but only after consulting your doctor.

Take note, however, that these drugs will only address the effects of your phobia, not cure you of it. One of these drugs, for example, are anti-depressants like Xanax which can only lessen your feelings of anxiety, or beta-blockers which block the stimulating effect of the adrenalin in the body.

Anxiety disorder is a common mental health issue among people regardless of age. Though it may not have serious and lasting impact on younger people, it is a cause for concern among seniors because of its side effects.

More worrisome is the fact that anxiety disorder is difficult to detect and diagnose. More often than not, it is taken as a sign of aging.  Well, they are not and if you feel any of the above symptoms, consult your doctor before it’s too late.

~oOo~

The post Get Rid of Anxiety Disorder Once and For All first appeared on Age With Charm.