Heredity cause of stress, speaker says
by Rhonda Cookus, Reporter

   Some people are more prone to stress than others because of heredity, a member of the TCC faculty said during a NW Campus seminar in September concerning anxiety and depression.
   Connie Alexander, counselor and associate professor of psychology, presented Anxiety, a personal enrichment seminar.
   As students walked in, Alexander asked each one to complete a survey answering true or false questions to help each realize whether or not he or she actually has a problem.
   “Depression and anxiety are not separate things as most people think,” she said.
   Through examples, she described the seriousness of these illnesses.
   Although anxiety and depression are both always present, Alexander said, one usually predominates.
   “When someone has a panic attack, you should never push them to ‘snap out of it’ because it causes more anxiety,” she said.
   Panic attacks, Alexander said, are caused by different factors such as consuming high levels of caffeine and inhaling high amounts of carbon dioxide, which can cause the brain to think the body is suffocating.
   The counselor also explained how the body reacts to panic attacks.
   “The hypothalamus causes the release of hormones that raise heart rate and blood pressure, tense the muscles and ready the body for action,” she said.
   According to Alexander, 7 percent of the population will have an occasional panic attack, and another 3 percent will develop panic disorders.
   Panic disorders however, will be more common in young adults and rarely seen after the age of 65.
   Alexander had a simple explanation for the absence of the problem among the elderly.
   “[They] just don’t care anymore,” she said.
   “Anxiety and depression are more likely to appear in a person who was sheltered by his or her family or whose family treated everything like a crisis,” the NW counselor said.
   There are twelve types of anxiety disorders, and, according to Alexander, Martha Stewart offers a prime example of one of them: obsessive-compulsive disorder.
   OCD is present in most people with anxiety.
   Because their brains are over active, the person with OCD starts organizing and color-coding everything, Alexander said.
   “I feel badly for Martha Stewart; she’ll have the cleanest cell in prison,” she said.
   Although most of these disorders are present in women, men have their share of disorders.
   “Many people (mainly men) have alcohol or drug problems in an effort to medicate themselves,” she said.
   Alexander, who is a licensed professional counselor and a licensed chemical dependency counselor, has been with TCC 26 years and she has studied these disorders for many years.
   If any more information is desired, Alexander said she could provide a list of helpful places around the area.
   “It is always best to start out with your family physician,” she said.