What is Anxiety

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What is anxiety and how does it affect us.

Anxiety is perfectly natural and is actually healthy in moderation.  It is perfectly normal to feel anxiety when you are faced with a stressful situation.  Job interviews or driving tests are a classic example of a stressful situation that can make you feel anxious.  Most people experience some degree of anxiety when faced with situation like these

Unfortunately for nearly ten percent of people their levels of anxiety interfere with normal life which is when simple anxiety starts to become an anxiety disorder.  There are several different types of anxiety disorder each of which affects people in different ways.

Types of Anxiety Disorder

Phobias

A phobia is a fear of something that is out of proportion to the threat posed by that thing. A classic example is arachnophobia, a fear of spiders.  Most spiders, certainly in the northern hemisphere are completely harmless and yet people can have an apparently irrational fear of spiders that can manifest itself as near terror.  Other common phobias may include a fear of heights, a fear of confined spaces, fear of mice or even something as simple as a fear of injections.

Social Phobia

One of the most common phobias is Social Phobia or social anxiety disorder which shows itself in several different forms. Generally speaking social anxiety is a fear of meeting people. Anxiety can be caused by any gathering of people but can also show as a fear of public speaking or performing in public. Most of us may feel anxious in these situations but for someone with social phobia these situations become impossible with them experiencing extreme anxiety whenever faced with a ‘public situation’.

Agoraphobia

Agoraphobia is another common phobia which manifests itself as a fear of crowds or open / public spaces.  This particular phobia is often a side effect of a panic disorder.

Panic Disorder

A Panic disorder is a fear of fear itself.   You can experience a sudden and overwhelming anxiety that seems to occur for no apparent reason. Known as a panic attack, it brings with it a range of physical symptoms which are extremely frightening. Once you have experienced one panic attack it can leave you afraid of the next, creating a cycle of fear that the disorder feeds on leaving you prone to a panic attack which can be triggered by almost any stressful situation.  There are a number of articles about panic attacks on this site

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

OCD is a recurring obsession or compulsion.  An obsession is a recurring thought about something that causes a feeling of disgust or revulsion.  A compulsion on the other hand is almost ritualistic behaviour where someone feels that they must complete certain actions.  Compulsive behaviour is often the result of obsessive thinking.  Some people can become obsessive about cleanliness, compulsively washing their hands many times an hour because of an irrational fear of germs.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

This is usually the result of witnessing a distressing accident or traumatic event.  Some people who have witnessed or survived a bad car accident can develop PTSD experiencing recurring anxiety as well as flashbacks of the trauma.  Although it is common to feel anxiety after such an event, if it persists for any length of time or worsens it can be diagnosed as PTSD.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder is a common anxiety disorder and manifests itself as an ongoing anxiety which you feel on a continual day to day basis often becoming anxious about everyday tasks and events usually worrying about things that might go wrong. This can become debilitating to the extent that you feel unable to ‘think normally’, constantly thinking of the worst case scenario for situations.

This is just a brief summary of a very complex subject.  The good news is that whatever type of anxiety disorder you have, it is treatable and can be overcome.