Do you often find yourself caught in the clutches of anxiety, unsure of how to navigate the many faces it wears? What if you had an expert's perspective to help you understand and deal with anxiety in all its monstrous manifestations? This week, renowned double board-certified American psychiatrist Dr. Hernandez shares his professional insights and personal experiences with anxiety in its various forms. Together, we dissect this 'monster of 3,000 heads,' shedding light on its normalcy as a protective emotion and the distress it can cause when left unchecked.
Dr. Hernandez draws from his extensive career to provide examples of the physical symptoms of anxiety, which often mimic cardiac problems, leading individuals to believe they're having heart attacks in the midst of severe panic episodes. He also discusses the vital role of medication in managing anxiety, as well as how situational anxiety can be dealt with in a more natural manner.
Do you often find yourself caught in the clutches of anxiety, unsure of how to navigate the many faces it wears? What if you had an expert's perspective to help you understand and deal with anxiety in all its monstrous manifestations? This week, renowned double board-certified American psychiatrist Dr. Hernandez shares his professional insights and personal experiences with anxiety in its various forms. Together, we dissect this 'monster of 3,000 heads,' shedding light on its normalcy as a protective emotion and the distress it can cause when left unchecked.
Dr. Hernandez draws from his extensive career to provide examples of the physical symptoms of anxiety, which often mimic cardiac problems, leading individuals to believe they're having heart attacks in the midst of severe panic episodes. He also discusses the vital role of medication in managing anxiety, as well as how situational anxiety can be dealt with in a more natural manner.
Hello everyone and welcome back to 2020 Psych. I'm one of your host, claire K, and I'm joined today by my father. I'll go ahead and let him introduce himself.
Speaker 2:Hello, my name is Dr Hernandez. I'm an American double board certified psychiatrist.
Speaker 1:Thank you all for tuning in and listening to our episode last week. This week we want to talk about anxiety and I want to start off by asking my dad based off what you've shared on this podcast, we kind of know that there's an understanding that you see patients who are more on the extreme side of mental illness schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, bipolar disorder, a lot of things along those lines. How often do you deal with patients with anxiety and how common is it?
Speaker 2:Well, anxiety is one of those symptoms that's sort of ubiquitous. Some experts say that anxiety is a psychiatry. What pain is to medicine? So it's very common and over the years I've called it a monster of 3,000 heads because it has so many presentations.
Speaker 1:What are some of the most common ways anxiety manifests itself? And then I would also want to hear the other side of that, of things that you've seen throughout your career. That was a physical symptom, that was a result of anxiety that surprised you.
Speaker 2:So almost everyone who suffers from mental illness will have some form of anxiety. But we have to remember that anxiety in and of itself is a normal emotion and it's sort of a warning sign for us to sort of be aware, to be careful. So it has a value in as much as it's protective, that when we feel anxious we kind of need to know why are we feeling anxious? Is it because we're under threat? Is there a reason for us to start feeling nervous? Are we in a dangerous situation? So it's a natural protective emotion. However, sometimes when it goes unregulated, when there's no self-control, then it becomes disruptive and it causes impairment, it causes dysfunction, it causes people to feel like if they're suffering there. So it can go from being a protective emotion to one that is unregulated, causing severe emotional distress. So that's what we're talking about that type of the anxiety when it's uncontrolled, when it's disruptive and when it's causing impairment.
Speaker 1:And going back to my other question, throughout your career what have you seen in patients that was a symptom of anxiety, that are kind of presented itself as maybe a physical issue?
Speaker 2:Well, typically patients have a lot of cardiac type symptoms in which they have palpitations. They can also have that, maybe some shortness of breath, they can have tingling sensations, they can have chest pain and so, in severe forms of what's known as panic disorder, panic symptoms patients seem as if they're having a heart attack and when in fact they're just having a severe panic attack. So there's a correlation with those symptoms in which, again, the patient looks as though they're having heart issues, when in fact they're having an anxiety disorder or a panic attack. So that's the most common example, and sometimes you'll have headaches, scalp pains, tension headaches, stomach aches, different pains throughout your body. These are all manifestations of anxiety, though in certain patient populations, particularly the elderly, you have to rule out that it's. There's actually isn't a physical cause that's causing these disturbances, before you make an assumption that it's emotional, that it's an anxiety disorder.
Speaker 1:And so, based off that, what you have, medications that you would prescribe for anxiety. But are there other forms? Let's talk about the other forms that people can combat anxiety naturally or at home without prescribed medications.
Speaker 2:Well, it depends on the anxiety in and of itself, the type of presentation. You can be anxious about upcoming events, stressors that you may have in your life, and there's an abundance of those. Just to give an example, let's say you're going to get married. Let's say you're going to apply for a job. Let's say you're going to have go through an interview. Let's say you're going to take your driver's license test. Those are situations that a certain amount of anxiety is to be expected.
Speaker 2:But if it's keeping you from sleeping at night, or if it's making you just really worried or you're just not feeling right, in those occasions maybe a low dose of a medication may help you sleep and just get you through that situational episode that you're in. However, if it's something that you're depressed and you're thinking of hurting yourself and you may be hearing voices yes, you're going to it's expected that you're going to be anxious. So the treatment is not so much the anxiety as much as the underlying cause. So if you're depressed, an antidepressant may be in order, but for other types of anxiety, like a generalized anxiety disorder, there are psychotherapies that can be used. So there's different types of approaches to this, to anxiety disorders in general.
Speaker 1:Based off, like what you've been reading. What could you say about the For lack of a better word like the anxiety industry or the anti-anxiety industry, of all these different wellness products? What's out there? What do you think works well? What do you think is kind of bogus? Because I'm sure there's a lot of fish in the pond at this point?
Speaker 2:So why are we even addressing this issue now? The reason we're talking about it is because there's been a tremendous increase in the number of patients that identify themselves as being anxious. Pre-pandemic, it was about about 8% of the patient population. Now that number has gone up to 27% and unfortunately the supply of therapists and people that are professionals has not been able to keep up with the demand. So therefore it's sort of opened up an opportunity, if you will, for some entrepreneurs to try to address this issue without having the training that mental health professionals do and there's even an association that will certify somebody after maybe 75 hours of training and they become sort of like what they call mental health coaches that try to help somebody navigate their way through their anxiety.
Speaker 1:Would you say like, could you say that, like yoga, for example, yoga instructors, that would be more of a not common way, but I guess like a way someone could combat their anxiety. That isn't a person trying to like sell them a fake that, oh, do this and this is the be all end all to fix your anxiety. But there are certain products or people that are selling this type of packaged product that, if you take this gummy, this will help you, not like this will ease your anxiety.
Speaker 2:So, yes, there are products that have been developed to sort of address that need that is not being filled by professionals, and even if there are professionals available, some people simply can't afford to pay them, and so that, therefore, this industry has evolved and developed to address the needs of those people that are suffering from anxiety issues. And there's one. One of the part of the most well known American psychiatrist is a doctor by the name of Daniel M and a man, excuse me who. He has like 1.9 million followers on TikTok and he says that before he reaches for a prescription path to address an anxiety issue, he would rather suggest to patients that they try supplements, and so, obviously, the doctors trying to address this need to a wide patient population, and he has his own products that he sells to leave eating anxiety some of them include vitamins and ashwagandha.
Speaker 2:So, in efforts to try to address this need, so are there. Products include CBD, which we know is a derivative of cannabinoid. So, and then a lot of people self medicaid with low doses of cannabis. Unfortunately, people will try to address the issue with other things like alcohol. So there are certain things that you can and should try. As you mentioned yoga, others will say that exercise is a good thing. Again, mindfulness of even heat treatments, you know saunas and so forth. So there are other approaches that do not involve medications or even supplements that you can try to to do, and we've promoted that during this podcast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've definitely talked about it before, about exercise, mindfulness and breathing, journaling things that kind of can take, distract you or put you in a meditative state where your mind can be at ease. I've also heard that magnesium helps to a certain extent, like before bed. But I think it's good to explore those different options before reaching for something, like you said, like alcohol or cannabis, if you can avoid it, especially alcohol, because that's just not a good thing to lean on. But I think it's really interesting and I'm glad to see that there are more one that it's being talked about more anxiety in general, because I think people everyone experiences some level of anxiety at some point in their life for a certain life events, or some people deal with it every day, and so I think just talking about it and having these great conversations and seeing what works that isn't an extreme version of how to get better is always good to talk about and have people know.
Speaker 2:Are there treatment modalities that have been researched to a certain extent and have been tried, are sort of stimulators. There's something that mimics touching, because human touching has been known to calm, to produce anti anxiety effects. You know, sometimes when someone's distraught you'll pat them in the back or a hug, so touching has a way of relieving. That's a natural way of sort of relieving anxiety. And there's also been something that's been developed to stimulate the vagal nervous nervous nervous system, to sort of promote natural healing or anti anxiety properties. And there's also a headband that sort of sends brain waves to that have calming effects. So there's different alternatives that are being explored and again, this is all of the results of the tremendous number of patients now that are suffering from anxiety. So the more research that goes into treating this condition, the better off we all are. The more options that are available for patients, obviously the better off everybody's going to be.
Speaker 1:That's going to wrap up this episode of 2020 Psych. Thank you, guys, so much for listening. We hope you found some insight throughout this episode and I hope you have a great day wherever you are.