How To Identify Four Common Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety symptoms generally include the following; apprehension, worry, feelings of fear, rapid heart beat, hyperventilation, excessive sweating, blushing, trembling, increased blood pressure and muscle tension. These symptoms are included in what are called "anxiety disorders" and are experienced to varying degrees, depending upon which anxiety disorder a person is experiencing. The steps below help us to identify four different types of common anxiety disorders.

1. Chronic, excessive worry, is a major feature of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a common anxiety disorder with chronic worry as a major symptom. Generalized anxiety disorder affects an estimated 6.8 million Americans and affects twice as many adult women as men.

   When a person has developed chronic worry that is excessive and severe, this can indicate GAD. People with this anxiety disorder find themselves worrying continually about everyday issues, such as work, relationships, school and health. While most people worry to a degree about these same issues, people with GAD do so to an exaggerated extent and on an ongoing basis (chronic). The worry aspect of this anxiety disorder also involves unrealistic or irrational worries as well, such as having constant concern over what "might happen," even if the chances are that the things being worried about will not happen. This type of worry over irrational concerns is also sometimes referred to as "what if thinking" and is also a feature of other anxiety disorders. According to some mental health sources, a person must have this type of severe worrying for at least six months for it to be considered as possible generalized anxiety disorder.

2. Fear of social events and of relating to people is a major feature of social anxiety disorder (SAD). We all have a degree of apprehension when it comes to meeting new people or attending social events and settings. People with SAD will have an exaggerated fear of socializing, which is also referred to as "social phobia." With this anxiety disorder, shyness becomes extreme and causes the person to begin to avoid social situations, to become extremely anxious when he is required to attend such events or to meet new people, even when it is individuals rather than a group. People with social anxiety disorder find themselves experiencing heightened anxiety symptoms in social settings, such as feelings of panic, excessive sweating, trembling and hyperventilation (rapid breathing). Much of what brings on these symptoms in people with SAD is the fear of being judged by others who are observing them or of looking silly or stupid in from of them. This phobia, affecting 15 million American adults, causes them to avoid social events and settings.
3. Experiencing panic attacks contributes to the development of panic disorder (PD). The majority of Americans have had a panic reaction to some type of event at some time in their lives. But for 6 million American adults, panic reactions or "panic attacks" begin to trigger on a continual basis; this indicates the development of panic disorder. Having an occasional panic attack, does not point to panic disorder, but if a person has a panic attack every day or several a day, this strongly indicates panic disorder. For many people with panic disorder, it was the original panic attack that then causes them to experience more. Because the original attack was so unpleasant, the fear (phobia) of having additional panic attacks serves as a trigger for causing them. Panic attacks include all of the symptoms listed at the top of this article for anxiety in general but with panic, the symptoms happen forcefully and suddenly, and create what might be referred to as a "climax" of anxiety.
4. Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is caused by traumatic events that are experienced by those who develop it. This anxiety disorder results from experiences that are extremely traumatizing to a person. Once the event has taken place, the person is unable to fully recover from it emotionally. The event that triggers PTSD can be an act of violence, a severe accident that causes severe shock or a sudden loss of a loved one. The person with PTSD will relive the traumatic event by having it replay repeatedly in his mind. This replay may not be voluntary, but simply a deeply embedded memory he cannot shake from his consciousness. A PTSD sufferer will also sometimes experience nightmares relating to the traumatic event or possibly even experience flashbacks that cause him to believe he is actually reliving the event repeatedly. War veterans, who are traumatized while fighting in combat, commonly experience this anxiety disorder. An estimated 7.7 million Americans suffer from PTSD.

These four steps describe major features of each of the four anxiety disorders and help us to identify them and distinguish among them. All anxiety disorders are treatable through various different therapies and anti-anxiety medications that can help to alleviate and diminish their symptoms.