Symptoms of anxiety

Indeed, stress symptoms can affect your body, your thoughts and feelings, and your behavior. Being able to recognize common stress symptoms can help you manage them. Stress that's left unchecked can contribute to many health problems, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity and diabetes. Common effects of stress On your body On your mood On your behavior Headache Anxiety Overeating or undereating Muscle tension or pain Restlessness Angry outbursts Chest pain Lack of motivation or focus Drug or alcohol misuse Fatigue Feeling overwhelmed Tobacco use Change in sex drive Irritability or anger Social withdrawal Stomach upset Sadness or depression Exercising less often Sleep problems If you have stress symptoms, taking steps to manage your stress can have many health benefits. Explore stress management strategies, such as: • Getting regular physical activity • Practicing relaxation techniques, such as deep breathing, meditation, yoga, tai chi or massage • Keeping a sense of humor • Spending time with family and friends • Setting aside time for hobbies, such as reading a book or listening to music Aim to find active ways to manage your stress. Inactive ways to manage stress — such as watching television, surfing the internet or playing video games — may seem relaxing, but they may increase your stress over the long term. And be sure to get plenty of sleep and eat a healthy, balanced diet. Avoid tobacco use, excess caffeine and alcohol, and the use of illegal substance...

Diagnosis You may start by seeing your primary care provider to find out if your anxiety could be related to your physical health. He or she can check for signs of an underlying medical condition that may need treatment. However, you may need to see a mental health specialist if you have severe anxiety. A psychiatrist is a medical doctor who specializes in diagnosing and treating mental health conditions. A psychologist and certain other mental health professionals can diagnose anxiety and provide counseling (psychotherapy). To help diagnose an anxiety disorder, your mental health provider may: • Give you a psychological evaluation. This involves discussing your thoughts, feelings and behavior to help pinpoint a diagnosis and check for related complications. Anxiety disorders often occur along with other mental health problems — such as depression or substance misuse — which can make diagnosis more challenging. • Compare your symptoms to the criteria in the DSM-5. Many doctors use the criteria in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), published by the American Psychiatric Association, to diagnose an anxiety disorder. Treatment The two main treatments for anxiety disorders are psychotherapy and medications. You may benefit most from a combination of the two. It may take some trial and error to discover which treatments work best for you. Psychotherapy Also known as talk therapy or psychological counseling, psychotherapy involves working with a th...

Simple strategies can reduce the headaches, upset stomach, and shortness of breath that may be triggered by emotional stress. You've had headaches on and off, or possibly nausea, or muscle pain. It could be emotions, rather than a physical illness, driving your symptoms. Blame your autonomic nervous system. This is a system in your body that you don't consciously control, but that regulates things like your heart rate, breathing, urination, and sexual function. It's also the system that reacts when you are under a physical threat. The autonomic nervous system produces your fight-or-flight response, which is designed to help you defend yourself or run away from danger. When you are under stress or anxious, this system kicks into action, and physical symptoms can appear — headaches, nausea, shortness of breath, shakiness, or stomach pain. "Doctors see it all the time — patients with real pain or other symptoms, but nothing is physically wrong with them," says Dr. Arthur Barsky, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. In today's world, with the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic toll, many people may be noticing new physical symptoms without realizing what's causing them. "This is a terribly stressful time," says Dr. Barsky. "There is stress about what our lives are like, the ominous threat of getting the virus and getting sick. It's already clear that the pandemic is heightening anxiety and sense of stress." For some people, this situation is the start of a viciou...

Written by Last updated November 26, 2022 Anxiety is a mental, emotional, and physical condition. Anyone who has anxiety or knows someone who has struggled with it can identify it by some of its most common symptoms: nervousness, sweating, exaggerated or irrational fear, and rapid heartbeat among others. But these are not the only symptoms of anxiety. Anxiety is occasionally called “the Great Imitator” due to its ability to mimic other health conditions. For those who live with chronic anxiety, its range of symptoms, from the usual to the rare, is extensive. Anxiety changes the way you think. Anxiety alters your hormone levels. Anxiety changes your perception and awareness so that you notice physical sensations that someone without anxiety would never notice. Anxiety can even amplify physical sensations. For example, someone without anxiety may have a knee pain so mild that they don’t even notice it, but a person with anxiety feels that knee pain severely because their mind has been altered, making it hypersensitive to the way the body feels. Anxiety can also create symptoms that are not there at all. Anxiety Symptoms List: Learn More About Anxiety The best way to stop anxiety is to understand it. The more you understand what causes your symptoms, what they mean, why you struggle with them, and what you can do to stop them, the more you’ll be able to start making real progress on your own anxiety symptoms. We have broken each symptom down into categories for easy navigatio...

Anxiety is an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts, and physical changes like increased blood pressure. People with anxiety disorders usually have recurring intrusive thoughts or concerns. They may avoid certain situations out of worry. They may also have physical symptoms such as sweating, trembling, dizziness, or a rapid heartbeat. Anxiety is not the same as fear, but they are often used interchangeably. Anxiety is considered a future-oriented, long-acting response broadly focused on a diffuse threat, whereas fear is an appropriate, present-oriented, and short-lived response to a clearly identifiable and specific threat. Adapted from the Encyclopedia of Psychology and

What is stress, and what happens when you can't cope well with it? Stress can present itself after being fired from a job, going through a divorce or losing a loved one. Even getting married, transitioning to a new job or having a baby can cause stress. Everyone experiences stress at one time or another. Many people define stress as either good or bad when it's neither. Stress is an event you view as out of your control, and it typically occurs outside your daily routines. How you react shapes your ability to cope with these and other similar events in the future. When people struggle to cope with stressful situations, depression and anxiety become more noticeable. Anxiety and depressive disorders are common. These illnesses affect more than 40 million adults in the U.S., or about 18% of the population, every year. The World Health Organization has estimated that the COVID-19 pandemic led to a 27.6% increase in depression and 25.6% increase in anxiety disorders worldwide in 2020. The most common anxiety disorders include: • Specific phobias Phobias could be related to animals, like spiders, cats or dogs; the natural environment, such as heights, storms or being in water; blood injection injury, which is a fear of needles or invasive medical procedures; or locations, like airplanes, elevators or enclosed places. • Social anxiety disorder This is a fear of being around other people or in social situations. • Generalized anxiety disorder This is an overall worry about many di...