The simple answer to this question is that Xanax treats anxiety and panic disorders including agoraphobia and the more distressing mood changes occasionally experienced during pre-menstrual syndrome. Xanax is also sometimes used to help relieve some of the symptoms associated with depression.
It is very important to note that Xanax is not a treatment for depression itself. You will need separate treatment for a depressive illness. No-one yet understands the precise relationship between anxiety and depression. There is evidence showing that anxious children are more likely to experience depression as adults. There is also evidence that many children outgrow their anxieties and become well-adjusted adults. It may be coincidence or the childhood condition may predispose the adult condition. We will have to wait for science to provide the answers.
No matter what the answer are, there remains one simple truth. In our modern lives, it is almost impossible not to feel anxious or to have moments of panic when we suddenly find ourselves in danger. So we have to move past everyday emotions and identify when they change to become disorders.
Basic definitions
We all have our own definitions for the words “stress”, “anxiety” and, when relevant, “fear”, but scientists have developed very specific meanings for the purposes of standardising their research. Thus, “stress” is a response that signals danger when we face any external stimulus we think is a threat. So that it attracts our attention, stress causes us to feel discomfort or, in more extreme cases, pain. “Fear” is the short-term response we make to a signal of stress. This instinctively primes us to run away or take other avoiding action. But “anxiety” is a feeling that hangs on after the threat has passed by and stress has diminished.
Science and the emotions
Science is supposed to be about objective truth. The scientific method is based on the idea that you propose a hypothesis, perform an experiment to see if it is true, and publish the results. If others can replicate your results through their own experiments, this is scientific proof of that truth. Unfortunately, what we all take for granted as human beings, can be difficult to capture in an experiment.
Ask anyone if they are anxious and the answers will be unhelpful. Emotions are personal and difficult to pin down. So just as people cannot explain what muscles they use to stand up and keep their balance, they cannot consistently explain what emotions they have and why they have them. More significantly, it would not be ethical to hold experiments to frighten people and then ask them how they feel. Substituting a lab rat for the human subject will only work when you teach the rat to talk back to the researchers.
The role of fear
Everyone, even researchers, can recognise fear. Both humans and rats react in the same way. We stop and look at the threat, we break out in a cold sweat, our hearts race and blood pressure rises. The adrenaline is readying us for the “fight or flee” response. These indicators are measurable. So, in the good cause of helping us to understand the biology of anxiety, researchers have been frightening rats and then studying whether they calm down. In fact, after several repetitions of a stimulus accompanied by mild pain, the rats begin to show signs of anxiety. They learn to fear the stimulus even when no pain is given.
Humans also learn what to fear and, even when fear itself has diminished, we continue some level of anxiety that the danger will return. Scientists now know that we have two basic systems for dealing with threat analysis and response. Experience gives us the power of judgement. We can look at the current situation, compare it to the past, and make an informed conscious decision. But, at an unconscious level, we have an emergency response system that allows us an instantaneous flight response. It is not designed to discriminate.
When do emotions become "disordered"?
In most everyday situations, our conscious minds allow us to navigate safely past sometimes terrible dangers. We use knives and other sharp tools, cook with gas, drive cars and operate dangerous machines, often only thinking about a controlled outcome and not about the detailed mechanics of how we will achieve those outcomes. But if something interferes with our emergency response system so that it does not shut down properly, we can feel a sense of fear and panic even though there is no obvious danger. When we look and see no danger, the fear and panic should subside to be replaced by mere anxiety. We have a disorder when the fear and panic does not subside when the conscious mind directs it. Imagine you are driving a car and you decide you want to stop. You put your foot on the brakes but they do not work. You do not slow down. So in a disorder, your fear and anxiety do not slow down.
Xanax relieves the emotions of panic, fear and anxiety
Xanax is prescribed when you are diagnosed as having Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD). There may be specific episodes of panic or fear and these will be controlled by taking Xanax. But the therapy treats the more general background emotional state that can produce these more extreme outbursts. This will be a state of excessive anxiety and worry that lasts over a significant period of time and interferes with your ability to undertake everyday activities.
Some doctors work to a minimum threshold, asserting that a case is not serious enough to justify a drug therapy unless you have suffered the experience for more than a specific time, say, six months. Others make a qualitative judgement about your life and the way you are able to live it, offering relief if your individual circumstances seem to justify it. The reason for this reluctance to prescribe Xanax is simple. Xanax can relieve the symptoms but you must learn new habits. You must learn how not to feel anxious and fearful. Simply prescribing a pill potentially makes you dependent on a pill — a very short-term solution.
So, if you have any of the following symptoms over a significant period of time, go and consult your doctor:
- a more or less permanent sense of restlessness — you feel anxious, impatient and uneasy;
- you find yourself feeling tired more often and after doing little — this will often be associated with other sleep disorders where you find it difficult to get to sleep or you wake up after only an hour or two;
- your concentration is suffering and you have moments when you forget what you are doing;
- you feel tense and irritable — often associated with aches and pains because of tense muscles.
If the diagnosis is confirmed, you may well receive a prescription for Xanax as a part of a comprehensive approach to treating your condition.
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