Anxiety among Young Adults: Critical Analysis
- Specific Purpose: To inform my audience about anxiety among young adults.
- Central Idea: Anxiety is a mental disorder that affects thousands of people but the most popular age group is before twenty one.
Introduction
Have you ever experienced anxiety? Imagine feeling anxious almost everyday, not being able to breathe, thinking you’re dying and other thoughts. According to my survey on anxiety, 90% of my classmates have experienced a form of anxiety. Many people tend to over exaggerate symptoms. For example, if you’re normally anxious before tests or something big you most likely don’t have an anxiety disorder.
- Anxiety can be caused by past trauma, genetics or nothing. There are more than a million cases of diagnosed anxiety.
- By having anxiety, depression and depersonalization for years along with attending therapy every week I am motivated to educate people on anxiety. To show them it isn’t something to normalize for entertainment purposes or sympathy.
- Today I will be informing you about anxiety among young adults. In the future you or someone you know may suddenly experience severe symptoms of anxiety and it is important for you to know if it’s something serious.
(Transition: Here is a graph to show you the statistics.)
Body
There are six major types of anxiety disorders. Generalized anxiety is the most common.
Anxiety is very common but the term generalized anxiety is the most common type of anxiety.
In an article stated by Umut Altunoz, “Young adults with GAD reported greater cognitive symptoms of anxiety, negative affect and depressive symptoms compared to older people.”
- a.This is significant because not only are you facing extreme worry you may also start to have depression.
- b. In his study it also shows how older adults are more concerned about their health or family while the younger adults worry about their future.
- c. There are more than 3 million cases of generalized anxiety per year.
In another article by Irish Independent, “ Anxiety is probably the greatest epidemic that we are suffering at the moment in terms of mental health,’ he adds. ‘It has always been there but we are seeing a particular acceleration in people of school- and college-going age, from 12 up to 25.’ (Barry)
People never realized how severe anxiety truly was until more younger people started getting it.
It is the greatest epidemic that many of us suffer but loads of people aren’t educated enough to help someone who needs it. Many think it’s something you can get over in a split second.
The younger you are the easier it is to treat and diagnose it.
(Transition: Here we have a chart on the effects of generalized anxiety disorder vs anxiety)
Social Anxiety is also very common but everyone thinks they have it. Some people get nervous before a presentation but those who have social anxiety tend to show physical signs of distress.
Olga Khazan who wrote for The Atlantic stated in her interview with a psychologist about anxiety, “People today might not actually be avoiding social interaction anymore than they did in past decades, but they are certainly more vocal about it.”
In response to this I believe that it is true that people have been dealing with social anxiety for decades it’s just that nobody really put a name to it.
Lots of young adults don’t know how to cope with social anxiety and when they seek help from their parents they get shut down because nobody really wants to talk about it.
It’s hard because young adults wil express how uncomfortable they are in certain social situations and nobody helps them which makes them want to skip school, dropout or isolate themselves in general.
Social Anxiety vs. Regular Anxiety
Those with social anxiety experience a lot of fear in public places.
A person with social anxiety may tremble when speaking, pick their skin or show other signs of distress.
Those with SAD can’t always go out and do things with their friends and when they do they may regret it and immediately isolate themselves.
They may feel nauseous, dizzy, want to escape and avoid the world entirely.
An example of regular anxiety is when you normally get anxious before talking to someone you have a crush on or doing a presentation.
However, people who get nervous before a presentation normally feel fine a few seconds or minutes during it.
Those with SAD have a hard time talking to a group of people (presentations)
Panic Disorder is common as well and important to be educated on.
C Barr Taylor who is a professor stated in an article, “The main feature of panic disorder is recurrent, unexpected panic attacks. Most patients with the disorder avoid situations where they think a panic attack may occur.”
Panic Disorder can include a phobia called agoraphobia. Which makes a person not want to go out and enjoy their daily lives.
This happens when you continuously have panic attacks after panic attacks. It can actually happen after just one attack.
You can take medication to reduce the effects of it just like you can with other anxieties.
Patients with panic disorder are encouraged to have psychotherapy sessions, mediadiate, exercise and avoid caffeine. Family members should also learn what steps to take to help out during a panic attack. The more you know the better it is to live life as normal as possible. Nobody should be afraid to seek help, as there are so many people who suffer everyday from this disorder.
(Transition: Here we have another chart but with Panic Disorder)
Conclusion
Today I have shown you disorders have been hard for many people to understand for a long time. From Generalized to Social and to Panic disorder there are far too many people dealing with it. Each can have you overthink about your life and what you’re capable of.
The older generation doesn’t like to talk about it because it’s taboo. They were told that you must be tough and deal with it on your own that was the mentality of it.
