What is Anxiety Disorder?

Anxiety is a vague, uncomfortable feeling of fear, dread, or danger. Anxiety disorders are a group of psychiatric conditions that involve anxiety. Symptoms can vary in severity and length. All of us feel anxious at some point of time. It is a very normal emotion. Most of us feel nervous when faced problem at work, before giving a test or making an important decision. These tensions are the part of life, but anxiety disorders are different.  They can cause such suffering that it can complicate you normal life.

Anxiety disorder is extremely serious mental illness. People, who are suffering from one worry and fear, which constantly frustrate them can be disabling. In anxiety disorder, anxiety does not go away, instead it gets worsen day by day, which can lead to serious depression. It can hamper their day to day activities such as job performance, school work and relationships. But with treatment, many people can manage those feelings and get back to a fulfilling life.

Some of the anxiety disorder symptoms include:

Feelings of panic, fear, and uneasiness
Inappropriate sleep
Cold or sweaty hands or feet
Shortness of breath
Irritated behaviour
Lacks concerntration
Heart prolems
Not being able to be still and calm
Dry Mouth
Numbness or tingling in the hands or feet
Nausea
Muscle tension
Dizziness

There are five types of Anxiety Disorders, which are as follow. Let’s have a look.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder
People with generalized anxiety disorder suffers from excessive unrealistic tension, fear and worry for months, even if there is nothing to provoke the anxiety or have not been triggered by any specific thing or situation and face numerous anxiety related symptoms. Some of the symptoms are as follow

Muscle tension
Inability to control the worry and tension
Inappropriate sleep
Irritated behaviour
Lacks concentration

Panic DisorderPeople suffering from Panic Disorder face unexpected and sudden attacks with a feeling of terror that strike suddenly and repeatedly without any warning. It happens as if some terrible thing is about to befall the person, generally lasting only a couple of minutes and leaving the person physically exhausted, which may cause palpitation, pounding heart, accelerated heart rate, sweating, trembling, sensation of short breaths, smothering or choking. If the person faces this situation several times within that time, the person may develop agoraphobia. Few symptoms of Panic Disorder are as follow

Unexpected and repeated attacks of intense fear
Feelings of being out of control during a panic attack
Deep worries about when the next attack will take place
Fear or avoidance of places where panic attacks have occurred in the past

Specific Phobia
The term phobia means fear. A specific phobia is a disorder in which a person have an unreasonable fear of something or situation. The level of fear is usually inappropriate to the situation and may cause you to avoid common everyday situations. For example, many people are scared of heights, some are scared of spiders and lizards, even when they are too far and cannot do any harm to the person or fear of water. One the common phobias are agoraphobia, in which a person develops a fear of being amongst crowds of people.

Post-traumatic Stress DisorderWe all have experienced something traumatic in the past, which we don’t want experience again, because that was very scary or depressing. The Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a kind of disorder, which arises when a person is exposed to a major stressful, life threatening situation. If you ever develop strong feelings of anxiety after experiencing or witnessing something you found very disturbing, you might be diagnosed of Post traumatic stress disorder. This disorder can cause flashbacks, nightmares and sleepless nights. Situations inducing the disorder include military combat, natural disasters, accidents being taken hostage, among others.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
OCD also known as Obsessive Compulsive disorder comes from two related symptoms: Obsessions and Compulsions. Obsessions are thoughts, images, urges or doubts usually of a distressing nature, which appears in your mind over and over again. Compulsions are repetitive activities done by the person, because if he won’t perform them, it would mean experiencing rapidly increasing levels of anxiety according to them.

Social Anxiety Disorder
This kind of disorder involves fear and self consciousness about day to day social situations. The tension in which they expect to feel embarrassed, judged, rejected or fearful of offending others. Some of the symptoms of social anxiety disorder are as follow:

Feeling highly anxious about being with other people and having a hard time talking to them
Avoiding situations, where other people will be around
Fumbling while talking to people
Feeling very self-conscious in front of other people
Worried about feeling humiliated, embarrassed, or rejected, or fearful of offending others
Being very afraid that other people will judge them
Worrying for days or weeks before an event where other people will be
Staying away from places where there are other people
Having a hard time making friends and keeping friends
Blushing, sweating, or trembling around other people
Feeling nauseous or sick to your stomach when other people are around