Anxiety is a condition where feelings of nervousness, fear, or worry Whilst it is normal to feel stressed and anxious from time to time, shortly before or during a significant event, these feelings usually subside after the event or activity. Whereas with anxiety, this isn’t the case and the condition can cause a lot of disturbances to different aspects of your life.
Common anxiety symptoms
- Feeling nervous, restless or tense
- Increased heart rate
- Rapid breathing (hyperventilation)
- Shaking or trembling
- Having a sense of impending danger, panic or doom
- Sleep difficulties
- Trouble concentrating or thinking about anything apart from the present worry
- Experiencing gastrointestinal problems
- Feeling the urge to avoid things that trigger anxiety
- Rumination (over-analysing negative thoughts and feelings)
How to differentiate ‘common’ stress with an anxiety disorder?
While stress causes similar symptoms to anxiety, the symptoms fade once the trigger for the stress (stressor) is no longer present. Meanwhile, for anxiety, these symptoms persist even in the absence of the stressor and can be rather intense to the point where they impact your ability to function normally in everyday life.
Types of anxiety disorders
Anxiety is a broad term that not only characterises a common set of symptoms, but also covers a wide range of anxiety disorders that are rather different to each other. Below are the five more common types of anxiety disorders.
Generalised Anxiety Disorder
Persistent and excessive anxiety and worry over all activities and events. Excessive worries can be about ordinary, routine issues.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Involves obsessions and compulsions.
- Obsessions → recurring, intrusive and unwanted thoughts or impulses viewed as inappropriate and may trigger distressing feelings
- Compulsions → repetitive behaviours and mental rituals that the person struggling with OCD does to try to counteract the obsessions and reduce uncomfortable feelings
Panic Disorder
Repeated episodes of sudden, intense anxiety and terror that reach a peak within minutes (panic attacks). These panic attacks often lead those struggling with a panic disorder to worry about the attacks happening again or avoid situations in which the attacks have occurred.
Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD)
Involves a set of reactions that have been developed after a person has experienced a traumatic event that threatened their life or safety, or that of others around them (e.g., accident, physical or sexual assault, war, torture, natural disasters).
- Re-living the traumatic event
- Constantly looking out for signs of danger
- Avoiding reminders of the traumatic event
- Feeling emotionally numb
Social Anxiety
Intense anxiety, fear and avoidance of social situations due to embarrassment, self-consciousness and concern about being judged by others.
More on this can be seen here.
Factors that contribute to the development of an anxiety disorder
Biological factors
- Genetics
Having a family history of mental health issues increases the likelihood of inheriting genes that make people more vulnerable to developing anxiety. - Brain chemistry
Neurotransmitters that regulate mood may not function normally, increasing the chances of experiencing anxiety symptoms. - Personality traits
Certain personality traits, like perfectionism and high sensitivity, can increase the likelihood of developing anxiety.
Environmental factors
- Trauma or stressful life events (e.g., natural disasters, witnessing a death, domestic violence)
Traumatic experiences or stressful life events, especially when experienced during childhood, can cause long-lasting distress. It can impact the development of certain brain areas that can increase the chances of developing mental illnesses including anxiety. - Learning from parents with anxiety or depression
While there can be a biological basis for anxiety disorders, people can acquire the risk for anxiety from their parents or those they have spent a large proportion of their lives with too. Parents with anxiety and depression can offer more limited social support for their children. This can reduce their children’s ability to cope with stressful situations, as for many people, their parents are their first role models for how to cope with anxious feelings. As a result, those who have been brought up with parents who struggled with anxiety or depression are more likely to develop an anxiety disorder. - Lack of social support
Those who are socially isolated are substantially at higher risk for developing mental illnesses like anxiety.
Psychological factors
- Coping style (e.g., avoidance, dissociating from the situation)
Coping behaviours like avoiding or dissociating from the situation has been shown to be related to anxiety disorders, as the anxious feelings are not effectively dealt with and feelings of shame, guilt and self-stigma are reinforced by these sorts of coping styles. - Perception of lack of control over stressful situations
Those who tend to think that they have no control over the events in their lives usually view the world as unpredictable and dangerous, which can lead to feelings of helplessness. This encourages them to expect negative outcomes, no matter how they try to prevent them, which leads to one of the hallmarks of anxiety: an impending sense of danger or doom. - Unhelpful thinking styles
Common unhelpful thinking patterns or commonly known as thinking traps related to anxiety are catastrophizing, mind reading, personalisation and overgeneralization. Even though these thinking patterns lead to thoughts that are unlikely to reflect the reality of the situation experienced, people with higher risk of anxiety often fall into these thinking traps which can fuel the anxious feelings.- Catastrophizing → Assuming the worst when faced with ambiguous situations. For example, when someone is late to a date, immediately assuming that they have completely ditched them.
- Mind reading → Assuming that you know what others are thinking.
- Personalisation → Taking things personally and/or blaming yourself, when the event that has occurred was neither by you nor under your control at all.
- Overgeneralization → Incorrectly applying a conclusion formed about one situation onto other events. For example, scoring a low score in one math test and concluding that you’re hopeless at math in general.
Anxiety is a complex condition that extends beyond typical stress, manifesting as persistent and intense symptoms that disrupt daily life. However, combining coping skills, guidance from Mental Health and Wellbeing Practitioners, as well as a reliable support system are key to effectively managing anxiety and improving overall mental health. While anxiety may feel overwhelming at times, remember that it shouldn't define who you are or prevent you from living the life you deserve!
