In today’s society, many disorders have altered/changed the way individuals have lived their life. In this paper, I will be discussing anxiety and mood disorders in terms of explaining neurologically what these disorders do to an individual, the treatments for these disorders, and how they affect college students. Elation, sadness, anxiety, and grief are all emotions that a person experiences at times throughout one’s life. It’s perfectly normal for a person’s emotions to change and progressively go up and down. The problem with this occurs when these feelings continue over a specific amount of time or come out of nowhere. When this happens it’s commonly diagnosed as an anxiety or mood disorder. Anxiety disorders are characterized by unnatural or unhealthy anxiety or an irrational fear (Naragon-Gainey, 2010). These emotions or fears can dominate an individual’s life, interfering with every aspect of the way one lives their life (Naragon-Gainey, 2010). Mood disorders are psychiatric disabilities that primarily affect how a person feels (Wolitzky-Taylor, Olatunji, 2009). This disorder occurs when the changes linger for many weeks or months, and have a significant impact on a way a person lives their life (Wolitzky-Taylor et al., 2009). Generally, a person with a mood disorder will experience down or sad feelings (depression) or they will have elated or elevated feelings (in bi polar). These impacts will affect the way a person performs at work, school and also affect relationships with friends and family (Wolitzky-Taylor et al., 2009). Now that I have defined both anxiety and mood disorders, I will now discuss how these disorders affect a person neurologically.
