Dealing with Anxiety, Phobias or Chronic Worrying in Your Life

Featuring Dr. Shimi Kang, BSc., MD, FRCPC, Psychiatrist, Dealing with Anxiety, Phobias or Chronic Worrying in Your Life

Duration: 1 minute, 42 seconds

So anxiety is a normal human emotion. It's normal to worry or be scared of certain things in our environment but when we have phobias or we're worrying chronically, and it impacts our day to day functioning or things you wanna do then it's time to get help.

For example, if you don't go to your best friend's wedding because you're scared of flying, that might be a problem or you turn down a job in a skyscraper because you're scared of heights. Those are times when you realize that what you want is being impacted by your fears and phobias.

So the best way to treat anxiety, chronic worrying, and phobias is firstly live a healthy balanced lifestyle. When we're sleep-deprived, these things seem bigger and it's harder to cope with. Exercise three times a week is as effective as medication from mild symptoms of anxiety.

Living a healthy lifestyle, being socially connected also makes us feel less anxious. In addition to that, there's great treatments out there. Something called cognitive behavioral therapy is designed to help change our thinking from more anxious worrying thinking to more positive thinking and that can be very helpful.

For phobias, four to six sessions of CBT can be really effective in 80 percent of cases so find a therapist. Talk to your family doctor. You want to make sure there's nothing like thyroid dysregulation which can make anxiety worse and if you need, a psychiatrist can help look at bigger pictures and see if you need medication like an antidepressant. Again, they can work really well for things like panic attacks and severe anxiety.

If you have questions about anxiety, chronic worrying or phobias, the best thing to do is contact your local family doctor.

Presenter: Dr. Shimi Kang, Psychiatrist, Vancouver, BC

Local Practitioners: Psychiatrist