Are You Worried, Or Is It Anxiety?
Feeling nervous, worried, or scared in response to danger or uncertainty is normal. However, if those feelings linger or worsen over time or seem to occur without a discernible cause, they may be a sign that you’re living with a mental health condition.
Because most of us regularly experience feelings associated with anxiety, it can be hard to know when they are becoming problematic. But there are certain signs that you may be experiencing challenges that go beyond day-to-day stress and tension.
Read on to find out how symptoms of anxiety disorders can differ from typical feelings of apprehension or fear, and learn about the various ways you can manage the effects of anxiety.
What is anxiety?
According to the American Psychological Association, anxiety refers to the cognitive and physiological processes your brain and body utilize in response to danger, hardship, and uncertainty. Anxiety typically causes worried or fearful thoughts, along with physical changes like a rapid heart rate, sweating, and muscle tension. This response can be useful in many circumstances, helping us sense danger and motivating us to act. However, it can also be harmful if anxiety is experienced frequently, severely, or for no apparent reason. When this is the case, anxiety can be a sign of a mental health condition.
Anxiety disorders
Anxiety disorders are common mental health challenges, with a lifetime prevalence of approximately 30% among adults. While many of the characteristics of various anxiety disorders are similar, their symptoms can differ in many ways, including the situations in which they arise and their severity. The following are common anxiety disorders.
An individual with generalized anxiety disorder may have feelings of consistent worry, fear, or anxiety, and these feelings may or may not be related to specific challenges. Symptoms of this anxiety disorder often interfere with multiple areas of day-to-day life, such as work, school, or relationships.
Panic disorder
Panic disorder can cause you to have intense feelings of fear and anxiety, which may occur without warning or apparent cause. Panic attacks typically last several minutes, can severely impact an individual’s ability to function, and often cause apprehension regarding potential future episodes.
Social anxiety disorder
Also called social phobia, social anxiety disorder is characterized by excessive worry or nervousness in social situations. This anxiety disorder often arises out of a fear of judgment or humiliation and can cause an individual to become isolated.
Phobias
Phobias are when you have feelings of fear and aversion to specific objects or situations, such as heights or enclosed spaces, that cause intense anxiety reactions when encountering the feared subject. Having specific anxiety phobias can lead to extreme forms of avoidance.
Separation anxiety refers to intense distress, worry, and fear related to being apart from one’s attachment figure(s). This often involves distress or anxiety due to beliefs that this person will be harmed or that something else will happen to create a longer-term separation.
When does worry become a disorder?
If your anxiety symptoms linger, occur frequently, cause functional impairment, or lead to emotional distress that impacts your daily functioning, you may benefit from anxiety treatment.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) provides accepted guidance regarding when anxiety might be a sign of a mental health condition. According to the DSM-5, generalized anxiety disorder may be present if feelings of nervousness and worry are excessive and happen more than half the time, for at least six months, are difficult to manage, and lead to at least three anxiety symptoms from the below list:
- Restlessness
- Fatigue
- Trouble focusing
- Irritability
- Physical tension
- Chest pain
- Disruptions to sleep schedule, including difficulty falling and staying asleep
In addition to these anxiety symptoms, you may have several other signs of generalized anxiety disorder or other anxiety disorders:
- Behavioral – Significant changes to eating habits or active avoidance of places, people, or situations that may cause anxiety.
- Physical – Medical problems such as gastrointestinal distress, increased heart rate, sweating, shaking, headache, unexplained pain, heart palpitations, and hyperventilation or other breathing problems.
- Psychological – Intense sense of impending doom or persistent danger, mood swings, difficulty making decisions, disorientation, and brain fog.
Experiencing these anxiety symptoms can worsen anxiety, causing a loop of heightened stress, intensified physical sensations, and further negative thoughts and emotions. Consider consulting with a healthcare provider to ask about an anxiety disorder assessment if your feelings of worry or anxiety involve persistent, intrusive concerns; cause you to avoid certain situations, people, or places; or lead to physical reactions such as a racing pulse, dizziness, shaking, or sweating.
While it may seem as simple as looking up the symptoms of anxiety disorders and seeing which ones fit your situation, diagnosis of an anxiety disorder requires the assistance of a physician, psychiatrist, or a similar healthcare provider. If you think you may have an anxiety disorder, consider asking a healthcare professional for an evaluation.
The process of screening for anxiety disorders often starts with a medical history and physical exam to rule out any potential underlying medical conditions that could be causing your symptoms. Your healthcare provider will also likely use a series of assessment tools to identify your symptoms and their severity. If they provide you with a diagnosis, they will typically either refer you to another provider or begin developing a comprehensive treatment plan based on your symptoms.
What causes anxiety or worry?
Because anxiety is often a result of uncertainty, major life changes such as starting a new career, moving, or losing family can lead to the development of symptoms. Additionally, a traumatic event may cause significant stress that becomes difficult to manage, especially if an individual has to revisit that specific event in some way.
If you are experiencing trauma or anxiety, support is available. Please see our Get Help Now page for more resources.
Treatment for mental health disorders
Even if your anxiety symptoms do not rise to the level of an anxiety disorder, they can negatively affect your mental and physical health, in addition to your career, relationships, and overall quality of life. Treatment for anxiety can help you avoid these potential effects. Often, treatment plans for anxiety involve medication, psychotherapy, or a combination of both. Additionally, there are several lifestyle changes that can help alleviate symptoms of anxiety on a day-to-day basis.
Psychotherapy
There are numerous psychotherapeutic techniques that can help individuals manage anxiety. Many mental healthcare providers use cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to help participants recognize harmful anxiety thought patterns and behaviors. For example, a therapist may help an individual recognize that their beliefs about the dangers of a specific phobia are irrational and strongly linked to maladaptive behaviors, such as avoidance and feelings of intense worry. CBT has proven helpful in treating anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, depressive disorders, and more.
Medication
Certain medications may be prescribed to alleviate the physical and mental symptoms of anxiety. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) are antidepressants that are commonly prescribed to treat anxiety. Other anti-anxiety medications include beta blockers, benzodiazepine, and buspirone. Always consult with a healthcare professional prior to starting or stopping any anxiety medication.
Lifestyle changes
Managing anxiety through alterations to your daily habits can provide you with added relief. Consider incorporating some of these alternative treatments for anxiety into your routine.
- Keep a journal to track your anxiety triggers, emotional reactions, and which coping skills help during different situations
- Establish practical morning and bedtime routines to help you stay productive and prepare for and wind down from your day
- Develop a self-care routine
- Practice deep breathing and relaxation techniques
- Eat a balanced diet
- Limit alcohol and caffeine consumption
- Get regular exercise
How online therapy can help
The results of a growing number of studies suggest that online therapy can help individuals reduce symptoms of anxiety. For example, in a meta-analysis that included 20 studies, researchers found that online therapy led to significant improvements in worry and anxiety for participants experiencing generalized anxiety disorder. The study also mentions the ability of online therapy to bridge the anxiety treatment gap that exists in mental health care by providing available and cost-effective solutions.
If you’re experiencing trouble managing your anxiety symptoms, consider speaking to a licensed therapist online. With an online therapy platform like BetterHelp, you can address concerns regarding anxiety remotely through video calls, voice calls, or in-app messaging.
Takeaway
Anxiety caused by chronic stress can significantly impact an individual's overall well-being and quality of life. When symptoms are lingering, worsening, or affecting a person’s ability to function, they may point to the existence of an anxiety disorder.
Worry, tension, irritability, fear, and other signs of anxiety are common feelings, which can sometimes make it hard for individuals to know whether they should be concerned. In addition to consulting with a provider who can screen you and determine whether a diagnosis and treatment are necessary, consider connecting with a licensed, supportive therapist online. With the right resources and advice, you can limit the negative effects of anxiety and continue to nurture mental and emotional wellness.
How can you tell if you're experiencing a mental health condition and not know it?
Mental health disorders aren’t always obvious to the people affected. It’s possible to experience symptoms without feeling anxious on a conscious level. All of the following can be signs of these disorders:
- Difficulties with attention and decision-making
- Irritability
- Trouble falling asleep or staying asleep
- Rumination (repetitive negative thoughts that are hard to let go)
You might also experience physical symptoms. Unpleasant bodily sensations such as muscle tension, headaches, and fatigue could be signs of an anxiety disorder of which you’re not yet aware.
Another possible indicator is the occurrence of panic attacks. These are brief, sudden episodes of intense distress, often manifesting in bodily disturbances like:
- Sweating
- Chills
- Nausea
- Racing heartbeat
- Trembling
- Shortness of breath
When you experience these types of symptoms and doctors can’t trace them to a disease and physical problem, it could be a panic attack. This can happen even if you aren’t conscious of anxious feelings.
GAD can cause different symptoms in different people. In some cases, it may lead to a pervasive sensation of worry that seems to recur no matter what you do. Some individuals might feel overly severe stress in situations that might only provoke mild worry in others.
In certain disorders, an individual’s worries may be narrowly focused on a particular area of life. For example, someone with social anxiety disorder (SAD) might experience stress only when they’re preparing to go out in public and interact with other people. Phobias can involve intense fear of specific things and scenarios, such as heights, dogs, and enclosed spaces. People with conditions like these may not feel stressed about everything, but their distress around the triggering objects can still cause them significant difficulties.
You can have a disorder and not feel stressed most of the time. For some people, it may manifest as feeling restless, easily annoyed, and constantly fatigued. It may also present with mostly physical symptoms such as insomnia, teeth grinding, lack of appetite, headaches, and muscle tension. Someone with these symptoms might not recognize that they’re experiencing a mental health disorder until they begin to work on them with a doctor and therapist.
Anxiety and fear can sometimes be considered synonyms, but in other cases, fear may refer to a more intense, urgent physiological response to danger. Anxiety often indicates a milder but more pervasive feeling of concern, often related to hypothetical possibilities rather than immediate threats.
Someone feeling an urgent desire to flee from an immediate threat could be considered afraid but not anxious. In contrast, someone who can’t stop thinking about how their presentation at work next week could go wrong might be anxious but not afraid.
It can sometimes seem hard to explain, especially when there’s no obvious reason to feel stressed. Scientists are still working to decipher the exact causes, but current evidence suggests that it may involve a combination of the following:
- Genetic and epigenetic causes. Research indicates that between 30% and 50% of the variance in this disorder is related to family history, suggesting that some people may be predisposed toward these disorders as a result of their genes.
- Neurological differences. The “anxious brain” may exhibit structural differences in certain key regions, particularly those involved in functions like threat processing.
- Early life experiences. Distressing experiences during the developmental period, including child abuse and parental coldness or neglect, may make people more likely to develop a disorder later in life.
These may commonly be related, but according to the American Psychological Academy, they’re not identical. Stress can be understood as an immediate response to specific challenges, misfortunes, or dangers. It can involve feelings of mental distress as well as physiological changes like clenched muscles or an elevated heart rate. Over the long term, stress can affect a variety of bodily functions, such as cardiovascular health or metabolic control.
In contrast, a mental health disorder may be less linked to specific causes and involve a more widespread feeling of worry. Often, it lasts even after an initial source of stress has gone away. It may also arise in response to future or imagined scenarios rather than what you’re experiencing right now.
Both these fall under the heading of “psychophysical responses to difficulty or danger”. However, stress is often understood as a more short-term physiological response. The latter can be more long-term, with more pronounced cognitive and emotional components.
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