What Are The Symptoms of Anxiety?

While the feeling of anxiety is common, for some people feelings of anxiety can become intense and overwhelming to the extent where they have a considerable effect on everyday life.

In these cases, some form of Anxiety disorder is generally diagnosed. These various disorders do encompass a broad range of symptoms. But generally, some symptoms are consistent throughout the majority of anxiety cases.

In general, anxiety is a feeling of being worried, afraid, or generally tense – usually in anticipation of an imminent event, or a predicted event.

But for someone to be diagnosed with an anxiety-based condition, these will need to be intense feelings. Symptoms are normally psychological, physical and behavioural.

What is Anxiety?

Anxiety: Anxiety in its simplest form is a feeling of being worried, afraid, or generally tense – usually in anticipation of an imminent event, or a predicted event. Anxiety is a perfectly natural emotion, with the vast majority of people going through periods of anxiety in their life. However, for some people anxiety is a constant problem which can be hugely detrimental to their quality of life. Anxiety can easily impact someone’s ability to live their life as they would hope to. Worrying can sometimes get out of control, making it near-impossible to live life in a healthy way. This typically leads to impairment in several different areas of life. The term ‘Anxiety’ can be applied to a host of mental health conditions, with Generalised Anxiety Disorder and Social Anxiety Disorder just two of many conditions.

Psychological

Here are some of the psychological symptoms that are often present:

• Feeling worried, afraid and generally tense
• Rumination
• Restlessness
• Being unable to relax
• Feeling others are looking at you
• Irritability
• Excessive worrying
• Needing reassurance from others regarding a range of factors
• Feeling disconnected from surroundings or body i.e. dissociation.
• Unnecessarily worrying about future events.

Physical Symptoms

Here are some of the psychological symptoms that are often present:

• Excessive sweating
• Fast heartbeat
• Fast breathing and subsequent shortness of breath
• Trembling or shaking
• Stomach churning
• Dizziness
• Pins and needles and general numbness
• Headaches
• Nausea
• Panic attacks

Behavioural Symptoms

There are also some behavioural symptoms that are present as a result of anxiety:

• Avoiding others wherever possible
• Not wanting to leave the house
• Not wanting to see other people
• Struggling at work
• Difficulty in maintaining or forming relationships

Summary

As seen above, the symptoms of anxiety can interfere negatively with the behaviour and actions of an individual. Anxiety often runs alongside other mental health conditions too.

As mentioned above, this isn’t an exhaustive list of symptoms. If any of these symptoms cause suffering, it is important that an individual addresses these issues by contacting a Doctor.

See Also

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