Anxiety is a normal emotional reaction, and we all feel anxious when we face stress, danger or difficulties. However, if anxiety is excessive, lasting, or unreasonable, it can affect our quality of life and health. At this time, we may suffer from anxiety.
Anxiety is a mental illness that comes in many different types and manifestations. According to statistics from the United States, 28% of people experience some form of anxiety disorder in their lifetime, which means that almost one in every three people will suffer from anxiety disorder. So, what are the types of anxiety disorders? What are their symptoms? Let’s take a look together.
1. Generalized Anxiety
This is the most common type of anxiety disorder, which is characterized by excessive worry and tension about various things in daily life, such as family, work, money, etc. Patients often cannot control their worries and cannot correctly assess the severity of the matter.
The main symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder are:
- Continuously worried or afraid
- Shortness of breath or asthma
- Difficulty sleep or insomnia
- Inattention or memory loss
- Discomfortable stomach or indigestion
Generalized anxiety disorder makes people feel at a loss and unable to relax.
2. Social Anxiety
This is another common anxiety disorder, also called social phobia. It is characterized by extreme fear and tension about social situations or public performance, and fear of being evaluated, ridiculed or rejected by others. Severe social anxiety disorder can lead to panic attacks.
The main symptoms of social anxiety are:
- Heartbeat or panic
- Nausea or vomiting
- Sweating or shaking
Social anxiety disorder makes people feel inferior and isolated.
3. Obsessive-compulsive disorder
This is a relatively special anxiety disorder, which is characterized by repeated obsessive thoughts or compulsive behaviors. Forced thoughts refer to meaningless, unreasonable or disturbing thoughts, such as worrying that you will be hurt, contaminated, or offend others. Compulsive behavior refers to some repetitive, stereotyped or useless actions taken to alleviate the anxiety caused by compulsive thoughts, such as repeated inspections, cleaning or tidying.
The main symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder are:
- Unable to get rid of or control the forced thoughts
- Compulsive behavior to relieve anxiety
- Compulsive behavior takes up a lot of time and energy
- Compulsive behavior cannot solve problems or bring satisfaction
Obsessive-compulsive disorder makes people feel troubled and helpless.
4. Post-traumatic stress syndrome
This is an anxiety disorder caused by experience or witnessing extremely terrifying or dangerous events, such as natural disasters, serious accidents, violent attacks, wars, deaths of relatives, etc. These events can cause profound psychological trauma to people, causing patients to have various abnormal reactions afterwards.
The main symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome are:
- Repeated recollection or re-experience of traumatic events, such as nightmare, flashback or emotional triggers
- Avoid or disgust of people, places, objects or situations related to traumatic events, such as unwilling to talk, remember or contact, etc.
- Being oversensitive or alert to the external environment, such as difficulty falling asleep, difficulty concentrating, mood swings or irritability, etc.
Post-traumatic stress syndrome makes people feel painful and helpless.
In addition to the above four types, there are some specific phobia, which refers to irrational fear and avoidance of certain specific objects or situations, such as acrophobia, flightphobia, insect phobia, etc. Although these phobia will not threaten life, they will seriously affect daily life and work.
There are certain reasons for the occurrence of these anxiety disorders, which may be related to genetics, personality, psychology, and social factors. Different types of anxiety disorders also have different severity and duration. Some severe anxiety disorders require medication to control abnormal activities of the nervous system, thereby alleviating anxiety.
Do you have anxiety?
If you want to know if you have anxiety disorders, you can refer to the criteria set by the American Anxiety and Melancholy Association, which can help you distinguish between normal anxiety and clinical anxiety (anxiety disorder).
1. Daily anxiety
- Worry about some difficulties or setbacks you may encounter in life, such as being unable to pay your bills, not being able to find a job, break up, etc.
- Feel uncomfortable or embarrassed in social or public.
- Feel nervous or sweating before important exams, speeches, performances or other stressful activities.
- Fear of some dangerous items or situations.
- After experiencing some traumatic events, there will be a period of anxiety, sadness or insomnia.
2. Anxiety
- Continuous worry about unfounded or unreasonable things that will seriously affect the quality of life and health.
- Extremely afraid or avoid social or public occasions because of fear of being criticized, ridiculed or rejected by others.
- A panic attack occurs for no reason, feeling extreme fear or anxiety, and fearing that it will happen again.
- Feel irrational fear of some items or situations that are not dangerous or very dangerous, and try to avoid contact.
- After experiencing some traumatic events, they will recall or experience traumatic events over a long period of time, avoid or disgust the people, places, objects or situations related to trauma, and become oversensitive or alert to the external environment.
If you find yourself traits of anxiety disorders in the table above, you may need to seek professional help. Anxiety is curable. As long as you identify and face your own problems in a timely manner and find the right treatment and support resources, you can get rid of the troubles of anxiety and regain happiness and confidence.
Test whether you have anxiety?
If you want to test your anxiety level, you can click here to do a free mental health test: Emotional Self-Assessment Scale/Depression-Anxiety-Stress Scale (DASS-21) online assessment . This is a simple and scientific scale that can help you understand your anxiety level and type, and can also serve as a reference for your professional help.
How to relieve anxiety?
Not everyone needs medication, and some people can improve their emotions and behavior through psychological counseling, relaxation training, behavioral therapy, etc. You can also use some self-management methods to relieve your anxiety, such as:
- Persist in exercise. Exercise can release tension and stress in the body, and at the same time it can enhance physical fitness and immunity.
- Maintain good sleep habits, sleep is the basis of physical and mental health, and lack of sleep can aggravate anxiety and depression.
- Cultivate interests and hobbies, do things that make you feel happy and satisfied, which can divert your attention and improve your sense of self-worth.
- Establish good interpersonal relationships, communicate more with family, friends, colleagues, etc., seek their understanding and support, and provide them with help and care.
- Learn to think positively, face challenges and difficulties in life with a positive and optimistic attitude, don’t worry too much about the future or regret the past, but live in the present and cherish every day.
Anxiety is an emotion that can be controlled and changed, just like our brains, it has amazing plasticity. Through learning and practice, we can help ourselves deal with stress and difficulties more effectively, rather than being controlled by anxiety, but actively control anxiety.
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