Anxiety is a general term to describe a set of disorders characterized by fear, nervousness, worry and apprehension. These disorders can affect how an individual feels and behaves, and can even begin to show in actual physical symptoms. While mild anxiety creates vague, unsettled feelings, severe anxiety can be completely debilitating, having a significant impact on daily life.
Anxiety is not necessarily "abnormal" in a person. Everyone experiences times where they feel worried or have a sense of fear when confronting something potentially difficult, such as taking an exam, performing in a recital, or job interview. There feelings are certainly justified and completely normal. Anxiety is a problem, however, when the symptoms interfere with a person's ability to sleep, eat, or otherwise function in their normal daily routines. Basically, then, anxiety happens when a person's reaction is out of proportion with what might normally be expected for a given anxiety-provoking situation.
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Anxiety disorders are classified into several specific types. What follows is the most commonly found anxiety disorders:
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Generalized Anxiety Disorder is a chronic form of anxiety disorder featuring excessive, long-lasting spells of anxiety or worry about non-specific life events, situations, or even objects. Individuals with Generalized Anxiety Disorder often feel afraid or worried about virtually every aspect of their lives - from money, family, health, and school - but have difficulty identifying the source of this fear and have problems controlling their worrying. Their sense of fear is usually unrealistic and disproportional to what would normally be realistic for their given situation. Suffers of Generalized Anxiety Disorder expect disaster and failure to the degree this worry interferes with their daily functioning at work, home, school, social activities, and relationships.
Panic Disorder
Panic Disorder is a form of anxiety featuring brief or sudden attacks of intense terror and apprehension that leaves the sufferer with symptoms of panic attack including shaking, dizziness, nausa, confusion and having difficulty catching their breath. Panic attack symptoms tend to come on suddenly, rise to a peak after about 10 minutes, but can last for several hours. Panic disorders tend to begn after the person experiences a traumatic event or periods of prolonged stress, but they can be spontaneous as well. A panic attack may lead an individual to be very aware of any changes in the functioning of their body, interpreting even mild changes as potentially life threatening sickness. This could be referred to as hypervigilance followed by hypochondriasis. Panic attack symptoms can also leave the sufferer to expect future attacks, which causes them to change their behavior in drastic ways in an attempt to avoid future panic attack symptoms.
Phobia
APhobia is an irrational fear and avoidance of a situation or object. Phobias differ from Generalized Anxiety Disorder in that the phobia has a fear response paired with specific cause. The fear may be acknowledged as irrational or unnecessary, but the individual finds the are not able to control the resultant anxiety. The objects or situations that cause the phobia can be variable, between situations, everyday objects, and animals. For instance, agoraphobia happens when an individual avoids a specific place or situation in order to prevent a potential panic attack. Agoraphobics will place themselves in areas where they will be able to escape quickly without embarrassment, and they will change their behavior to reduce anxiety about being able to make a quick exit.
Social Anxiety Disorder
Social Anxiety Disorder is a form of social phobia characterized by a fear of being negatively judged by people or a fear of public embarrassment. This includes feelings such as stage fright, a fear of humiliation, or a fear of intimacy. This disorder can cause people to avoid public situations and even basic human contact to the degree normal human life is impossible.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, or OCD, is an anxiety disorder characterized by the individual having repetitive thoughts or actions to the degree their OCD symptoms become distressing and intrusive on the person’s day to day life. OCD sufferers most often know their compulsions are irrational, but they continue the repetitive actions because they relieve their anxiety and OCD symptoms. These repetitive or obsessive behaviors include things like walking in a certain, specific pattern, obsessively cleaning personal items or hands, constantly checking locks, stoves or light switches.
Separation Anxiety Disorder
Separation Anxiety Disorder is characterized by high levels of anxiety when a person finds themselves separated from a person or place that provides a sense of safety and security. Sometimes the separation anxiety can create a sense of panic in the individual, and is considered a disorder when the separation anxiety response is excessive or inappropriate.
Disclaimer: This guide is provided for general information purposes only. The materials contained within this guide do not constitute medical or pharmaceutical advice, which should be sought from qualified medical and pharmaceutical advisers.