At work, but also in the family, on the street and on social networks. The restlessness that grips us and undermines our mental health every day. The increase in access to the emergency room says it, but also the immoderate consumption of psychotropic drugs. Who now help Italians to live better with their fears.
At work, in the family, on the street, on social networks. Let’s try anxious to stay at homebut also to go out, let’s not talk about what assails us when we see the news between duties, wars, armies, collapse of the bags. Because of his fault we suffer from insomnia, we fall into depression, we become aggressive or passive to the point of remaining paralyzed by the fear of the future or by the only idea of facing changes, travel, or any element of novelty.
It is the new health crisis, which is pushing us towards a lifetime in half, and inevitably also towards psychotropic drugs. It is not a problem only Italian, if it is true as it is true that two of the most popular TV series worldwide, The White Lotus And The Pitt (And these products, you know, are now the mirror of the times) turn around the use and abuse of benzodiazepines, and how many effects, even disastrous, can have on our lives and on the decisions we make. Moreover, the data are clear: the Osmed report on the use of drugs testifies that the anxiolytics are the medicines in band C (i.e. paid by citizens and not reimbursed by the National Health Service) so the Italians spend more: between benzodiazepines and the like are about 617 million euros in a year, more than you pay for the paracetamol against the fever or for the drugs for the dysfunctions for dysfunctions Erectiles. A figure-monstre, but with great differences at the regional level: in fact, the most voracious consumers are the Ligurians, the Venetians and, in general, the inhabitants of northern Italy, while the less anxious ones would seem to be the Sicilians and the Lucanians.
However, the phenomenon must be reported in the right riverbed: the clinical one. “As for our country”, explains Andrea Fossati, principal of the Faculty of Psychology of the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University of Milan, “the last official mapping, that is, the ministerial report of 2022 on mental health, tells us that the access to the emergency rooms for psychiatric reasons have been about 3 percent of the total, that is, about half a million cases. 39 percent of these were for anxiety related pathologies: we only talk about adults. It is therefore an important phenomenon also in terms of medical emergency, but not so serious as to make us think that the situation can escape from hand: we also remember that anxiety is not so much the symptom of a disease when an emotional state. It is therefore not excessively medicalized ».
If the use of emergency hospitals can be seen as the tip of the iceberg, the submerged exists. And there, in the gray area of those suspended in a sort of “half life”, which often prevents – among many other things – even just to take the plane by pushing to give up travel, satisfying work and experiences, also remain harnessed entire families. Closed in a physical and mental lockdown: a recent survey promoted by Quid+ (line of the Gribaudo publishing house dedicated to the quality time between parents and children) on a sample of about 500 Italian nuclei has shown that 86 percent of parents perceive significant levels of anxiety in their daily lives that, often without realizing it, transmits to children. Which, in turn, are constantly exposed to the parallel world of social networks, which does nothing but exacerbate the problem. “In fact, anxiety is an agent who often” infects “on a family level,” says Daniela Chieffo, director of the clinical psychology department of IRCCS Polyclinic Gemelli Foundation of Rome. «They are problems that can remain silent for a long time and then explode in certain periods of life. Young adults are very at risk in moments of passage: in front of exams, job interviews, tension often becomes pathological, evolves into psycho-agitation or panic crisis. At that moment it becomes a strong alarm signal. And social media, if not used correctly, affect the most fragile: there is always the fear of “losing something”, of not being able to do everything that others do, a continuous run -up. At that point, if not master and channeled, anxiety can become paralyzing and generate a condition that also affects the immune system and the somatization “.
Tension, in the end, you can really get sick. But to avoid finding us at the mercy of negative thoughts that can result in acts of social or physical self -harm, or impossibility to carry out normal daily activities, it is necessary to contact doctors. Because the remedies, fortunately, are there. But it is essential to know how to use them, going in search of the true roots of the disorder. “Unfortunately we live in a historical moment in which all the advertising carried out on the benzodiazepines pushes to assume them in a compulsive way to the first anxiety manifestation, even if only to be able to take a plane or face a job interview,” warns Giampaolo Perna, professor of psychiatry at the Humanitas University and director of the Mental Health Center of the Humanitas group. «All this is deeply wrong: also because anxiety is an important function of the brain, which allows you to successfully overcome the challenges that life imposes on us. If I turn it off and I play in defense, a very powerful weapon is missing ».
The first step is therefore always to go and examine the real reasons for the problem, To understand if it is better to start treating it with cognitive-behavioral sessions from the psychologist or if instead contact drugs. In the latter case, we have several options. “If anxiety is prolonged and linked to something we cannot control, then it can lead us to exhaustion and cause a distress syndrome, because cortisol – in the long term – does not help the immune system and not even mental well -being”, continues Perna. «In this case, when it becomes pathological, it makes sense to reduce it pharmacologically. Usually the first choice drugs are those that act on the serotonin and noradrenaline system, SSRI and SNRI antidepressants: they have less immediate effects than benzodiazepine and tend not to use too much in young people because they can give problems of weight gain and sexual difficulties. Benzodiazepine instead act on the Gaba inhibitory system, therefore they reduce anxiety by “setting off” the reactions a little “.
Regarding the benzodiazepine, the myth of dependence must be dispelled: A study from 2024, published onAmerican Journal of Psychiatry and carried out on over one million people, he showed that 15 percent of those who were under treatment with these drugs after a year no longer took it, and after seven years even 97 percent of the patients had stopped taking them. “It is not said that if you start with these medicines your destiny is to take them for life,” concludes Perna. “Identical speech for the” new “Z-Drugs: the same study tells us that only 0.35 percent of those who take them had to increase the dosages. Obviously, the cure must always be carried out under strict medical supervision, therefore no to word of mouth and self -medication ». Also because we are not talking about risks immune drugs. “All benzodiazepines, if used for very long periods, increase the risk of cognitive compromise, reduction of supervision and balance disorders, with consequent risks of falls and fractures”, says Luca Pasina, head of the Laboratory of Clinical Pharmacology and prescriptive appropriateness of the Mario Negri Institute in Milan. “They should be taken into consideration only when anxiety is serious and significantly compromises daily life.”
In order not to risk trying at all costs to “treat” something that is not a disease But an emotional state, perhaps causing us even more serious physical troubles, which alternatives we can take into consideration if we do not want to pass the nights by fixing the ceiling to think about the problems of the next day but we would also like to avoid playing the neurons that remained by throwing them to the psychotropic drugs? “There is a whole world of alternative drug remedies,” concludes Chieffo. «For example, the Mindfulness and breath techniques are very effective that can slowly help control emotional alteration even without reaching psychotherapy sessions. Many people benefit great in singing, and manage to keep under control the most impactful symptoms by enrolling in a choir. Let’s not forget the importance of sport or even just walking in the midst of nature. Free the mind from negative thoughts and costs nothing ».
In addition to helping us to face life with (hopefully) a found serenity, the more daily passages could also make us get to the beach in enviable form. Other than psychotropic drugs.
