People with all sorts of anxiety disorders worry a lot. Frequently, they spend inordinate amounts of time trying to anticipate and prevent negative outcomes. They fret for hours about possible risks like MRSA, heart attacks, traffic accidents, and airplane crashes. Sometimes they also spend lots of time trying to minimize these risks by excessive cleaning, avoiding traffic at all costs, taking a train instead of a plane, exercising to excess or dieting beyond all reason.

It’s as though they think that their worries and/or compulsive actions will truly help keep catastrophes at bay. In other words, spend enough time and effort and you’ll be safe from harm. Oh, it only it were so.

We’ve paid special attention to kids’ problems with anxiety in a number of our For Dummies books, including “Overcoming Anxiety For Dummies,” “Child Psychology and Development For Dummies,” and “Obsessive Compulsive Disorder For Dummies.” That’s because attending to anxiety early can help prevent the emergence of much bigger problems down the road.

I thought you might like to see some of these ideas in a snapshot. Here they are:

People with anxiety disorders tend to get anxious (okay, duh). They even worry about getting anxious after seeking treatment for their anxiety. Sometimes they go so far as to use this concern as an excuse for not seeking treatment in the first place. In other words they think, “Why bother getting treated if the problem is likely to make a swift return after I get treatment anyway?”

If you’ve had thoughts like these, I’d like to suggest you try rethinking your viewpoint. Treatment of anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder generally has enduring, positive effects. That’s especially the case if you obtain treatment based on cognitive behavior therapy that’s been specifically tailored for the type of anxiety or OCD you struggle with.

In fact, cognitive behavioral treatment for anxiety typically holds up far better than medication over the long haul. So even if you do take medication for anxiety or OCD, you now have one more reason to add cognitive behavior therapy to your regimen—the likely prevention of relapse as well as the possibility (for many) of successfully tapering off your medication at some point.

Nonetheless, relapse does happen. What should you do if it does?

The New York Times recently ran an article bemoaning the ever increasing focus on safety at our nation’s playgrounds. Today, you rarely see monkey bars and tire swings. And playground surfaces feel like walking on a giant sponge. Tall, fast slides have shrunk, leveled out, and slowed down. Signs warn parents everywhere about potential dangers.

But this emphasis doesn’t stop at playgrounds. When is the last time you drove by a school bus stop and saw only children? You’re just as likely to see more parents and caretakers than children waiting for the bus. Newspapers run articles all of the time that warn of potential dangers to kids. It seems that the media can’t get enough of these stories.

You’ve read about the ongoing controversy over the effectiveness of antidepressant medications. Luminary psychologists such as Dr. Robert DeRubeis and Dr. Irving Kirsch have made persuasive arguments supporting the idea that most, if not all, of the effectiveness of antidepressant medication appears to be due to the so-called placebo effect.

In other words, their analysis of studies has led them to conclude that when patients improve on antidepressant medication, that most of that improvement is readily chalked up to the expectations of improvement that come when people take a pill they believe will improve their symptoms.

In a recent blog, we wrote about a specific subtype of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder known as Hoarding OCD. In that blog, we noted that Hoarding OCD seriously disrupts the lives of its sufferers.

Often, a massive accumulation of useless junk causes major portions of household living space to overflow and become unusable.

Of all the various types of anxiety disorders, we’ve always found Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) to be the most interesting. Most people with OCD have both obsessions (extremely upsetting or worrisome thoughts and images) and compulsions (behaviors that help reduce distress by engaging in them). However, the stress reduction that compulsions provide prove to be quite fleeting and so a cycle ensues in which the person feels distressed by thoughts (such as I may have gotten germs from touching that doorknob) followed by compulsions (such as hand washing) which only briefly alleviate their difficult emotions.

OCD comes in a variety of different subtypes (such as fears of contamination, checking and doubting, superstitious OCD, and concerns about symmetry). However, Hoarding OCD is a subtype that is particularly curious and distinctly different from other forms of OCD. In fact, it’s so different that some psychologists believe Hoarding OCD should be given its own diagnostic category, separate from OCD in general.

Briefly, Hoarding OCD involves three major characteristics according to those who have studied the phenomenon most intensively:

All children experience anxiety or fear from time to time. Some fear and anxiety are normal. In fact, if kids never felt anxious at all, they would be slow to learn how to stay safe. They would likely be less motivated to study and they would have a harder time keeping their behavior in line with expectations.

So, how do you know if a child is experiencing normal, expected levels of anxiety as opposed to something that would be cause for concern or even a referral to a professional?

Certain fears and anxiety are especially typical at certain ages. The table below is excerpted from our recent book, “Child Psychology and Development For Dummies.” It describes the types of fears that are especially common at certain ages and thus, not worth worrying about. It also notes at what point you may wish to consider checking things out further.

In a future blog, we’ll discuss what the various types of truly worrisome childhood anxiety look like.

The events unfolding in Japan are frightening. Many of us remember drills in elementary school when we sat under our desks hiding from potential air strikes during the cold war. We read about radiation poisoning and knew that our wooden desks were no protection from those horrors.

People with OCD often have exaggerated fears of becoming contaiminated and radiation is a common concern. We know that for those with this particular fear, the possible melt-down of nuclear power plants can increase their symptoms. We have a few suggestions for those with OCD and those who care about them.

One of our favorite topics to write about is obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). OCD presents in a fascinating variety of symptoms and the literature on treatment is extensive. So, when we were contacted by New Harbinger Publications to review a new book on OCD for teens we were delighted. Free From OCD: A Workbook for Teens with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder by Timothy A. Sisemore, Ph.D. has been released this month. It’s worth a look.

The book contains 40 activities that are designed to help the teen reader overcome OCD.