Anxiety-Causes and Symptoms of Anxiety

                                                                                         

Anxiety is the body's response to fear. It plays a valuable role in self-preservation - the fear of the consequences often prevents us from taking unnecessary risks.

Anxiety as a disorder results from the fear response becoming out of proportion to the actual risk. Anxiety disorders involve excessive levels of negative emotions, such as fear, worry, nervousness, and tension, and the anxious feelings occur involuntarily despite your best attempts to avoid them or stave them off.
The body responds to anxiety stimulus both physically and mentally. Anxiety can lead to over-stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system. It manifests by the physical symptoms such as a racing heartbeat, sweating and trembling, and psychological symptoms such as restlessness, insomnia and difficulty in concentrating.

Anxiety, worry, and stress are all a part of most people's life today. But simply experiencing anxiety or stress in and of itself does not mean you need to get professional help or you have an anxiety disorder. In fact, anxiety is a necessary warning signal of a dangerous or difficult situation. Without anxiety, we would have no way of anticipating difficulties ahead and preparing for them.

An anxiety disorder, however, involves an excessive or inappropriate state of arousal characterized by feelings of apprehension, uncertainty, or fear. The word is derived from the Latin, angere, which means to choke or strangle. The anxiety response is often not attributable to a real threat. Nevertheless it can still paralyze the individual into inaction or withdrawal. An anxiety disorder persists, while a healthy response to a threat resolves, once the threat is removed.

Symptoms of Anxiety

Signs and symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder can vary in combination or severity. Generalized anxiety disorder symptoms may include:
· Restlessness
· Feeling of being keyed up or on edge
· Feeling a lump in your throat
· Difficulty concentrating
· Fatigue
· Irritability
· Impatience
· Being easily distracted
· Muscle tension
· Trouble falling or staying asleep
· Excessive sweating
· Shortness of breath
· Stomachache
· Diarrhea
· Headache


Anxiety causes

The cause of anxiety cannot be linked to a single situation or event. Rather, many psychoanalysts believe that there are both physical and environmental triggers that combine to create a particular anxiety disorder.

Anxiety is often triggered by stress in our lives. Some of us are more vulnerable to anxiety than others, but even those who become anxious easily can learn to manage it well. We can also make ourselves anxious with "negative self-talk" - a habit of always telling ourselves the worst will happen.


There is clear evidence that anxiety disorders run in families. Studies show that if one identical twin has an anxiety disorder, the second twin is more likely to have an anxiety disorder than non-identical (fraternal) twins. These findings suggest that a genetic factor, possibly activated in combination with life experiences, predisposes some people to these disorders.

Anxiety disorders can co-exist with other mental and emotional issues such as substance abuse, depression, and eating disorders. It is possible that suffering with one of these problems may contribute to feelings of anxiety.

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