Anxiety is a human response to stress, uncertainty or threat. It helps your body stay alert and prepared to deal with challenging situations. It's perfectly natural to experience anxiety before a big speech, medical appointment or big event. But, if anxiety is ongoing, too much and out of control, it can get in the way of daily life, relationships, work and wellbeing. If this does happen, it could be the sign of an anxiety disorder and should be treated by a professional.
Anxiety disorders are among the most prevalent psychiatric illnesses in the world affecting individuals of all ages and backgrounds. Many people don't know how to identify the early signs and symptoms of anxiety, as it can manifest in more than just worrying. It may impact your feelings, physical well-being, thinking, and conduct, so it may not be easy to spot if you don't know what it is.
Identifying signs of anxiety is the initial step to getting help and treatment in time. Here are 25 typical signs of anxiety to watch out for, what they could mean, and how you can treat anxiety to get back on track.
Understanding Anxiety and Anxiety Disorders
Anxiety is your body's natural response of “fight or flight” mechanism, which gets you ready to react to challenging or threatening situations. This is a nervous system response and is meant to keep you safe. Anxiety is appropriate and beneficial to feel at times, but excessive anxiety can be harmful and may affect your physical and mental well-being.
Anxiety disorders occur when the fear, worry or nervousness is intense, happens more often than is necessary or clearly warranted, and persists for weeks or months. The symptoms can affect a person's daily functioning, including at work, school, with friends and family, and in their relationships. Anxiety disorders are not like normal stress; they normally do not resolve on their own and typically call for specialist assistance to handle them properly.
Anxiety Symptoms You Shouldn't Ignore
Anxiety is a unique feeling for each individual. These symptoms can manifest as emotional changes or as physical discomfort. People often have a mix of emotional, thinking, physical and behavioral symptoms.
1. Persistent and Excessive Worry
Worrying about commonplace events, when there's little or nothing to be worried about, is one of the most frequent anxiety symptoms. People are constantly thinking about work, finances, family, health or future events and find it difficult to stop thinking about them even though they know they are worrying about things that may not be logical.
2. Restlessness or constant edge
Often those suffering from anxiety report that they cannot relax. They can feel a persistent sense of nervous energy or feel like something bad is going to happen. It can be hard to have restful time or concentrate on what's happening in the here and now.
3. Racing Thoughts
An anxious mind tends to get lost in a lot of different ways of thinking. Rather than concentrating on one problem a person might be facing, his or her thoughts may become circular, creating more and more problems for the person to deal with, making it harder to concentrate and make a decision.
4. Difficulty Concentrating
Anxiety takes up mental space and can make it difficult to concentrate when talking, meeting, studying, or handling day-to-day work. There are people who say that they are still mentally distracted because they are constantly worried about something.
5. Increased Irritability
Chronic anxiety can cause ongoing tension to the nervous system, making the person sensitive to emotional triggers. Triggers for frustration, anger or emotional outbursts may be minor inconveniences or situations that happen every day.
6. Constant Feeling of Dread
Some people with anxiety say they feel like there's something terrible that is going to happen even if there isn't. This constant feeling of doom may affect functioning and emotional health.
7. Rapid Heartbeat or Heart Palpitations
Anxiety triggers the stress response system of the body, which raises the heart rate and creates some of the physical sensations associated with anxiety such as pounding, fluttering or racing heartbeat. These signs and symptoms can continue during periods of rest and can be confused with heart-related illnesses.
8. Chest tightness or chest pain
Some of the more troubling physical effects of anxiety are chest discomfort and others. The muscle tension and the activity of the heart can lead to sensations of pressure and/or tightness, which can be mistaken for cardiovascular issues, and require medical evaluation to rule these out.
9. Shortness of Breath
People often have trouble breathing or feel like they are not receiving enough air when they are feeling anxious. This symptom tends to occur especially during panic attacks and can exacerbate fear.
10. Excessive Sweating
The body triggers the fight or flight mechanism that activates the sweat glands and causes excessive sweating even in a comfortable temperature. This symptom often occurs on the hands, face and underarms.
11. Trembling or Shaking
People usually shake their hands, legs or body due to anxiety. This is a physical response to adrenaline rush, may happen during stressful moments and during panic attacks.
12. Muscle tension and body pain
When people chronically worry, the muscles stay tense for long periods of time, causing stiffness in the neck, shoulders, jaw and back. Chronic pain and headaches can be caused by long periods of muscle tension.
13. Low Energy and Fatigue
Anxiety makes the body stay on the alert, but in the end it is physically tiring. People often find themselves feeling sleepy all day, or during the day when they believe they have enough sleep, but their mind is not really resting.
14. Frequent Headaches
Excessive tension in the muscles, or consistent mental workload, can be a factor in the development of chronic headaches or migraines. As anxiety increases so do these headache.
15. Digestive Problems
Gastrointestinal symptoms are prevalent in anxiety patients and linked tightly to the brain via the gut-brain axis. Nausea, stomach cramps, bloating, diarrhea, constipation or loss of appetite can happen for no reason at all, as a digestive disease.
16. Difficulty Falling Asleep
People often feel anxious and find themselves lying awake at night, reliving conversations, thinking about what might happen or overanalyzing situations. This can make it hard to sleep, which will affect overall sleep quality.
17. Frequent Night Wakings
Anxious people will wake up multiple times throughout the night because they have intrusive thoughts, vivid dreams or increased physical alertness which leads to poor sleep quality.
18. Overthinking Every Situation
Those who feel anxious tend to revisit past conversations, doubt their choices and constantly ruminate about negative scenarios. This over-thinking cycle can cause stress and hinder your ability to move forward with confidence.
19. Difficulty Making Decisions
Anxious people are afraid to make a wrong decision or face unpleasant results, so even simple choices can become too difficult and time consuming.
20. Avoiding Certain Situations
An avoidance response is a common behaviour of anxiety. People can be reluctant to attend social gatherings, or be reluctant to speak in public, or travel or attend meetings or new places where they think they will feel anxious or embarrassed.
21. Constant Need for Reassurance
One of the most frequent symptoms of anxiety is a need to repeat messages to family members, friends or colleagues. Reassurance may help ease immediate anxiety, but doesn't address the root of the concern and can just make anxious thinking patterns worse.
22. Panic Attacks
A panic attack is a brief, intense episode of fear that can include a racing heart, chest pain, dizziness, shaking, sweating, breathlessness and fear of losing control or dying. Panic attacks can be treated by professionals, and they are a lot to deal with.
23. Feeling Detached from Reality
During intense anxiety a few people feel disconnected with themselves or their surroundings. This is referred to as depersonalization or derealization, and it can be disconcerting, but is a symptom of anxiety disorder.
24. Fear That Interferes with Daily Activities
If anxiety is so overwhelming that it interferes with your work, studies, relationships or activities, it means you likely need professional help.
25. Declining Quality of Life
The most significant indicator is when an anxiety becomes a part of your life. If these fears, concerns and physical reactions are creating problems for you in your life and preventing you from reaching your goals, they should not be overlooked.
When To Get Professional Help?
Sometimes, anxiety is a natural and healthy response to life, but when feeling anxious often gets in the way of your life, without any obvious set-off, and becomes a constant worry and feeling for several weeks, it could be a symptom of an anxiety disorder. Early intervention can help symptoms from worsening and help prevent lasting damage. Mental health workers are able to make a correct diagnosis of your symptoms, pinpoint the cause or causes of your mental health condition, and give you treatment that is based on evidence and appropriate for you.