What is Anxiety?
Anxiety is different than fear. Fear is a response to danger. If you are anxious, you may feel very nervous even without an actual threat. Sometimes people feel both anxious and depressed at the same time.
Anxiety can take the form of:
• Excessive worry, or ongoing anxiety and dread about situations and events. This form of worry may also be called generalized anxiety disorder.
• Panic, or periods of fearfulness with physical symptoms like shortness of breath, dizziness, or a racing heart.
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder, or nervousness because of troubling thoughts like feeling dirty. These thoughts lead to repeated actions (compulsions) like hand washing to ease tension.
• Post-traumatic stress disorder, which causes a person to relive or avoid experiences that bring to mind a life-threatening event.
• Specific fears (phobias) of flying, spiders, roaches, or other insects; public places; or of being in a crowd.
If you have any of these symptoms, see your doctor. He or she can help you to find the cause of the anxiety and can work with you to treat the symptoms. Some of these symptoms improve with relaxation, yoga, or deep breathing. Others get better with medication. Your doctor can suggest ways to help you feel like yourself again.
Next: Causes
