Breaking Down 4 Common Anxiety Disorders: What You Need to Know

The word “anxiety” regularly comes up in everyday conversation, and while it’s encouraging to see more focus on mental health, it’s important to recognize the nuances of these conditions. While everyone experiences anxiety now and then, it can manifest in different ways and at varying levels of intensity, and can turn into an anxiety disorder. Understanding these differences is key to having a more informed and supportive approach to mental health.

In this article, we’ll explore the most common types of anxiety to provide a deeper understanding of this frequently discussed condition. At TalkOnline Counselling , we have several therapists on staff trained in these conditions who can help you achieve your own mental health goals. Contact us today if you want to get started tackling your own journey with anxiety.

Let’s get into it.

1. Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Generalized anxiety disorder is the most common form and often referred to as GAD. As the name suggests, GAD may affect many aspects of your daily life. We all know what anxiety feels like, but experiencing it throughout every day of your life is not a normal occurrence. If you often worry about situations or family members for no reason, you may be experiencing GAD.

It is important to note that GAD is different from the occasional spike of anxiety when making a phone call or presenting a speech in class. GAD can feel like a persistent sense of dread, with an ongoing expectation that something bad will happen. If not treated, GAD can interfere with your ability to live a happy and fulfilling life.

Symptoms of GAD

Typically, GAD begins slowly in childhood and becomes more apparent with age. The most common symptoms include:

Trembling
Issues falling asleep or staying asleep
Sweating
Tense muscles
Breathing problems
Nausea
Inability to relax
Trouble making decisions
Fatigue

If these symptoms sound familiar, it may benefit your overall well-being to seek professional therapeutic help. Problems coping with internal stress can cause GAD, but experts also find that GAD may be genetic. In other situations, this form of anxiety can develop as a side effect of substance abuse, family trauma, environmental stress, or long-term chronic illness.

2. Social Anxiety Disorder

Putting yourself out there in unfamiliar social situations is rarely an easy thing, but some people cope better than others. All of us get butterflies before a first date or presentation, but social anxiety is like having butterflies before every interaction in your daily life. Sounds stressful, right?

Social anxiety can cause people to avoid relationships and significantly disrupt daily routines and work activities. Those with social anxiety may feel overwhelmed in social situations, as if their reactions are beyond their control. The fear of being judged or viewed negatively by others often leads to avoidant behaviors.

Symptoms of Social Anxiety

Like all anxiety disorders, everyone has unique symptoms and triggers, but we’ve compiled a list of common symptoms for those with social anxiety, including:

Blushing/face redness
Racing heart
Intense feelings of self-consciousness
Anxiety in anticipation of an event
Over-analysis of your performance after a social interaction
Worry about embarrassing yourself

If you have social anxiety, you may notice that you avoid many common social situations. These situations often include:

Using a public washroom
Starting conversations with strangers
Dating
Eating in front of others
Returning items to a store

Engaging in these activities may make you feel like you’re setting yourself up to humiliate yourself in front of others. These feelings can flare up and change over time, but if you’re purposely avoiding socializing because of anxiety, there is help for you at TalkOnline Counselling .

3. Panic Disorder

Panic disorder often presents the most intense physical symptoms among anxiety disorders. As the name suggests, this disorder is accompanied by panic attacks. Those with a severe panic disorder can experience frequent and unexpected panic attacks that produce feelings of overwhelming fear that can last several minutes.

For many, panic attacks can occur with no trigger, but you may notice that an attack comes on if you are feeling overwhelmed or out of control. These attacks can be so intense and alarming that many people with panic disorder make big changes to their lives to avoid experiencing another attack. Panic attacks may occur several times a week, but may be as rare as a few times a year.

Although for many people there is no clear trigger for a panic attack, often people who experience alexithymia – a general disconnection from or inability to identify their emotions – are at greater risk for panic attacks.

Symptoms of Panic Disorder

Panic disorder is a serious mental health issue and can severely affect your quality of life if left untreated. For example, if flying in an airplane or traveling long distances (common panic attack triggers) throws you into a panic attack, you may be unable to travel to see loved ones, leading to isolation. Along with intense emotions of impending doom or fears of death, there are several physical symptoms. These may include:

Wheezing
Dizziness
Chest pain
Sweating
Stomach pain
Pounding heart

Experts posit that panic attacks may be caused by the part of the brain that interprets an external danger. In certain situations, your survival instincts kick in too strongly and you experience the symptoms above. It’s important to know when to seek help if you feel that your panic attacks are negatively affecting your life.

4. Phobia Disorders

As with all anxiety disorders, phobia-related anxiety produces intense feelings of fear. These fears may also produce an aversion to a certain object, place, or situation. There are many phobia-related disorders, but the most common types include:

Simple phobias: These specific phobias center around certain objects or situations, including but not limited to heights, blood, flying, and specific animals.
Social anxiety disorder: Those who experience social anxiety often have an aversion to social situations like parties or gatherings. This fear can make everyday interactions, such as meeting new people or speaking in public, feel overwhelming and difficult to manage.
Agoraphobia: Those with agoraphobia often avoid situations that require them being out of the home alone, being in a crowd, or using public transportation. If you have severe agoraphobia, you may avoid going outside altogether and become housebound.
Separation anxiety: As the name suggests, this disorder occurs when someone has an intense fear of being away from a loved one in fear that something may happen while apart. These intense feelings can cause individuals to feel distressed or unwell during separation.

Symptoms of Phobia Disorders

As you can see above, phobia disorders can take many shapes, but the most common overarching symptoms typically include:

Irrational worry about encountering an object or situation
Immediate anxiety or panic when you do encounter that object or situation
Taking active steps to avoid being near or interacting with that object or situation

Treating Anxiety Disorders

Talk therapy is a highly effective and productive treatment for many types of anxiety disorders. While everyone’s treatment is unique, talk therapy remains a widely beneficial approach for addressing anxiety. It helps individuals understand the root causes of their anxiety, develop healthy coping mechanisms, and build emotional resilience.

Through guided conversations with a licensed therapist, individuals can explore their thoughts and feelings, challenge negative thinking patterns, and gradually reduce the intensity of their anxiety symptoms. With TalkOnline Counsellingprofessional support, you can leave behind the overwhelming feelings of anxiety and regain control of your life.

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