Anxiety
Don't tolerate the exhausting effects of anxiety that cause you to feel worried, fearful, overwhelmed, unsteady, hyper-vigilant or hyper-sensitive. Find effective help for anxiety / panic here.
Anxiety creates a state of activation that can leave you feeling agitated (nervous, fearful, or irritable), make it difficult to breathe or relax, and cause you to suffer from intrusive, obsessive thoughts or unproductive, repetitive behaviour.
Anxious conditions exist on a continuum ranging from the experience of constant low-level worry or agitation, to discreet and debilitating panic attacks. Fears, phobias, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, and unwanted automatic reactions also fall within the category of anxiety disorders when they occur in the absence of a realistic threat.
Anxious conditions are thus disparate and broad, and are not easy to describe with a single list of markers. That said, the following list includes symptoms that are commonly cited:
- worry
- fear
- agitation
- trouble breathing
- chest pain
- dizziness
- muscle weakness
- stomach upset
- thoughts of "going crazy"
- fears of having a "heart attack" (without a medical basis)
- trouble sleeping
- ruminations or preoccupying thoughts
- difficulty concentrating
- the engagement of avoidance behaviors
- the engagement of repetitive behaviors
Individuals suffering with anxiety or panic generally are plagued by only a few of these markers (not all of them), depending on the anxious condition. People with undiagnosed anxiety disorders can sometimes be known to "self-medicate" with calming substances, such as alcohol, marijuana, or other sedatives.