Anxiety is normal human experience which everyone experiences. When it interferes with your day to day life, ie work, home, school, relationship, it becomes a disorder. Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness affecting 1/5 of the US population. Anxiety can mimic any medical illness.

Symptoms of Anxiety Disorder:

• Feelings of panic, fear, and uneasiness
• Shortness of breath
• Palpitations
• Cold or sweaty hands and/or feet
• Dry mouth
• Numbness or tingling in the hands or feet
• Nausea
• Muscle tension
• Dizziness
• Uncontrollable obsessive thoughts
• Ritualistic behaviors, such as repeated hand washing
• Biting nails
• Flashbacks of traumatic experiences
• Nightmares
• Problems sleeping
• An inability to sit still

Symptoms of a panic attack:

These often last from a few seconds to few minutes

• Difficulty breathing.
• Tightness in chest / chest pain
• Feeling that one is having a heart attack, stroke or that one is going to die.
• Intense feeling of terror.
• Feeling of choking or smothering.
• Feeling faint or dizzy.
• Trembling or shaking.
• Sweating
• Nausea or stomachache.
• Tingling or numbness in the fingers and toes.
• Fear of losing control

Types of Anxiety Disorders

Panic Disorder

Symptoms include sudden unexpected:

• Sweating
• Chest pain
• Palpitation
• Feeling of choking
• Feeling like one is having a heart attack or stroke
• Feeling like one is losing his or her mind
• Feeling of terror

Obsessive compulsive disorder

Symptoms include:

• Obsessions which are recurrent, persistent thought, impulses or images which are intrusive and inappropriate. They cause marked distress and anxiety. The person knows these are product of his/her own mind.
• Compulsions which are repeated behavior i.e. excessive hand washing, praying, cleaning, turning off lights, checking doors/windows.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Is a condition that one can develop after suffering or witnessing a traumatic event such as war, sexual or physical assault, natural disaster or unexpected death of a loved one.

Symptoms include:

• Flashbacks of traumatic event
• Nightmares
• Hypervigilance
• Numbness and avoidance
• Poor sleep
• Poor concentration
• Irritability and anger

Social anxiety disorder

Symptoms include:

• Persistent and marked fear of performance in social situations
• Person is self-conscious
• Person is afraid of being judged by others
• Fearful of embarrassment or ridicule

Specific Phobias

• Fear of a specific object or situation i.e. crowds, heights, elevators, flying, bridges, tunnels, snakes, needles, doctors coats etc.

Generalized anxiety disorder

Symptoms include:

• Excessive worry and anxiety
• Difficulty controlling worry
• Restlessness, feeling keyed up or on edge
• Tiredness
• Poor concentration
• Irritability
• Muscle tension
• Poor sleep