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Anxiety is the natural body response against stress. It is a most common mental health conditions that cause persistent or frequent feelings of nervousness and worry. They can cause a range of physical symptoms, such as fast or shallow breathing, sweating, difficulty sleeping or blood pressure to other reasons like school first day, job interview, or giving a speech, which may cause most people to feel fearful and nervous.

Anxiety and stress, trigger the “fight, flight, freeze, or fawn” response. During this response, the body produces stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline, which is the body’s way of preparing for danger. If a person is frequently anxious, they may have chronically elevated stress hormone levels, which can affect sleep, digestion, hormone health, blood pressure, and more.

This disorder is most commonly reported in the United States, affecting nearly 40 million adults. 

What are the symptoms of an anxiety disorder?

The primary symptom of any anxiety disorder is an intense feeling of fear or worry, affecting many aspects of the individual life.

• Feeling of Panic, fear and uneasiness
• Unable to stay calm
• Sweating
• Fast heartbeat and breathing faster
• Fast or shallow breathing
• Dizziness and Shaking
• Muscle tension
• Nausea or diarrhea
• Tiredness and sleep problem
• Thinking about a problem over and over again and unable to stop (rumination)

During severe anxiety, a person may also experience anxiety attacks, or panic attacks, which can last for several minutes.  

Causes of Anxiety

• Genetics: Anxiety disorders can be genetics and run in families. 
• Environmental stress: This refers to stressful events that an individual has seen or lived through and create anxiety disorder. Example include childhood abuse and neglect, a death of a loved one, or being attacked or seeing violence.  
• Negative life events: Many Stressful or negative events happened in life like losing a parent in early childhood, increase the risk for anxiety disorder.  
• Severe illness or chronic health condition:  Constant worry about poor health for self or of the loved ones, can cause a feeling of overwhelmed and anxious.

Types of anxiety disorder

There are several types of anxiety disorder, which occurs based the situations that a person experience. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) lists the following conditions as anxiety disorders:

• Specific phobias: The phobia of fears from certain objects or situations like fear of height, flying, certain animals, or needles. To some extent, the response is normal, but when it goes beyond, people create risk to themselves, making them in the feeling of extreme fear or panic or fear of dying. This fear is generally uncontrollable and it would be good to avoid such situation. 
• Agoraphobia: this is the fear of being in place where it is difficult to get help or escape in case of emergency. For example using public transport, airplane, standing in a line, staying at home alone. 
• Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD): People with this type of anxiety disorder have feelings of worry for nonspecific events and situations. For example, people may worry about their money, health, family, work, and many other things. This result in difficulty concentrating, irritability, restlessness, fatigue, and difficulty sleeping.
• Panic disorder: A feel of sudden fear brings a panic attack, causing sweat, chest pain and palpitations. Sometimes a feel of choking or a heart attack, trembling, feeling short of breath also occurs. Panic attacks can also occur in people with other types of mental health condition.
• Social anxiety disorder: or social phobia, is a feeling of overwhelming worry, self-consciousness, fear of negative judgment from others, embarrassment, rejection, or offending others. This may cause a person to worry about meeting strangers, eating or drinking in public, starting conversations, public speaking or performing, attending social events etc. The impact of social anxiety vary from person to person. 
• Separation anxiety disorder: This anxiety can be seen in anyone who are attached to their closed ones. People are afraid of leaving people they are attached to. Separation anxiety are most commonly seen among infants and children but also occurs in adults. They experience reluctance to leave them or be away from them, overprotective, physical complaints, such as stomach aches or headaches
• Selective mutism: This is a type of anxiety that causes an inability to speak in public but are capable to speak in family. According to the Selective Mutism Association, this disorder may be a manifestation or result of social anxiety.
• Substance or medication induced anxiety disorder: This condition occurs with the use of certain medicines or withdrawal of certain medications or drugs. Potential causes may include alcohol, caffeine, and cannabis use.

Treatment

There are many treatment options available to control and manage the anxiety disorders. Generally, counseling is also good option for anxiety disorder.  

Medication

Medication does not cure anxiety disorders, but it can reduce the symptoms. Many medicines to control the symptoms are available, but it is advisable to visit doctor before consuming any medicines. Examples include antidepressants, such as escitalopram (Lexapro) and fluoxetine (Prozac), Beta-blockers, Anticonvulsants, and Anti-psychotics etc.

Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy is an umbrella term for a range of talk therapies or counseling. In this the trained mental health therapist, helps the person to understand about their anxiety and how to manage and overcome with this problem. 

There are many types of psychotherapy to choose from, including:

• Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): which helps people to change their negative thought into positive. 
• Anxious exposure therapy: This therapy help people to overcome their fears or anxiety disorders. A person will be given an exposure to a situation or stimulus that triggers the feelings of fear or panic for them.
• Dialectical behavioral therapy: This is similar to CBT but focuses more on regulating emotions and develop healthy ways to cope with stress.
• Psychodynamic therapy: This therapy help the people to improve their quality of life. 

These therapy takes time, but if a person is stick to these, they would definitely get positive results.

5 ways to calm Anxiety

• Breathe in and out: Deep breathing helps you to calm down
• Stay away from sugar: As per research, too much sugar intake can worsen anxious feelings
• Watch a funny video:  Research shows that laughter has lots of benefits for our mental health and also found in one study found that humor could help lower anxiety as much as (or even more than) exercise can.
• Exercise: Exercise can calm anxiety in two ways. Firstly, it decreases levels of stress hormones produced in the body and secondly, it makes people focus on the task of exercising, which can distract them from any negative or stressful thoughts.
• Practice yoga: Yoga practice has been proved beneficial form of exercise in decreasing the symptoms of depression and anxiety. Many studies showed that yoga decreased heart rate, blood pressure, and cortisol levels, as too much cortisol in the bloodstream can worsen anxiety. 

Summary

Anxiety disorder is the mental health problem, whose symptoms include intense feelings of worry or fear that persist for long period of time. People having anxiety also experience physical symptoms such as an increased heart rate, sweating etc.

If anxiety occurs frequently, it will significantly effect on a person’s life. However treatment are available for this disorder and are treatable. People can contact to healthcare or a therapist.

With proper treatment, a person can lower their anxiety levels, improve their quality of life.