Anxiety Disorders

What is an anxiety disorder?

Feeling nervous before giving a presentation or trying something new is a normal part of being human. When the event passes, so do the butterflies in your stomach.

A clinical anxiety disorder is something very different. It's a complex medical condition that doesn't improve on its own and often requires professional care. They are characterized by severe feelings of panic and fear that interfere with your day-to-day life.

About 1 in 5 college students has experienced some form of clinical anxiety during their lifetime. The good news is that anxiety disorders are common and treatable. No two people experience anxiety in the same way, and symptoms can vary from person to person.

Types of anxiety disorders

There are multiple types of anxiety disorders, each with different symptoms and causes. Here are some of the most common types of anxiety disorders and some of the symptoms.

Generalized anxiety disorder

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) causes extreme worry about everyday things. Unlike other anxiety disorders, this worry isn’t tied to one specific thing. People with GAD may find themselves worrying about school, work, relationships, health or money.

GAD usually develops gradually, often between childhood and middle age. Symptom severity varies and affects a person's ability to perform daily tasks.

People with GAD find it very difficult or impossible to control their anxiety. It lasts for six months or longer and is associated with at least three of these symptoms:

Feeling restless or on edge
Feeling easily tired or fatigued
Having difficulty concentrating
Irritability
Tenseness in muscles
Difficulty sleeping

Social anxiety disorder

Social anxiety disorder, also called social phobia, is when high levels of anxiety lead to avoiding social situations. People with social anxiety disorder have a strong and persistent fear of being judged by other people or humiliating themselves in social situations, such as:

Speaking or performing a task in front of others
Eating in front of others
Meeting new people
Attending parties or gatherings

People with social anxiety disorder have significant anxiety, or even panic, whenever they find themselves in situations where they fear they will be judged negatively by others. People with social anxiety disorder typically go to great lengths to avoid these activities or situations (e.g., altogether avoiding classes that involve public speaking). It may cause problems with school, work, and social relationships.

Specific phobias

Specific phobias, also known as phobias, are disorders characterized by an excessive fear of particular objects, animals, or situations.

People with specific phobias experience intense fear, sometimes full-blown panic, nearly every time they come in contact with or anticipate coming in contact with the feared object or situation.

People with phobias often make great efforts to avoid the feared object or situation (e.g., someone with a dog phobia will avoid walking down streets where they may encounter a dog). This avoidance can greatly interfere with activities.

Phobias typically fall into one of the following categories:

Animal: Involves fear of animals (e.g., snakes or insects)
Natural environment: Involves fear of natural environmental objects or situations (e.g., heights, bodies of water, or storms)
Blood-injection-injury: Involves fear of seeing blood, receiving an injection or undergoing other medical procedures
Situational: Involves fears of everyday situations (e.g., tunnels, bridges, flying, driving, enclosed spaces, etc.).
Other: Involves fear of situations not covered in the other categories (e.g., choking or vomiting)

Panic disorder

A panic attack is a sudden surge of intense fear or discomfort that peaks within minutes. A panic attack may feel like a heart attack. They tend to develop abruptly, usually peak within 10 minutes, and end within 20 to 30 minutes. Many people will have one or two panic attacks in their lifetime, sometimes unexpectedly or while under acute stress. While scary, they usually don’t cause physical harm.

However, for some people, panic attacks can happen often and seemingly have no trigger. Repeated panic attacks may lead to panic disorder, where you live in fear of having another attack, which can disrupt daily life.

During an attack, you may experience some of the following physical symptoms:

A racing heart
Shortness of breath
Sweating
Dizziness
Chest pain
Numbness
You might also feel a sense of losing control, going crazy, or fear of dying.

After a panic attack, people with panic disorder have intense worry that they will have another attack. Sometimes this worry is so intense that people suffering from panic disorder will avoid places or situations where it would be difficult to escape or get help if they had another panic attack (e.g., crowded stores or classrooms). This is called agoraphobia.

Agoraphobia

Agoraphobia is a fear of being in places where it might be hard to escape or get help during a panic attack or intense anxiety. People with agoraphobia often avoid crowded areas, public transportation, or even leaving home.

In severe cases, a person may avoid many situations and spend most of their time at home. This can make school, work or social life difficult. Agoraphobia often develops after one or more panic attacks and may occur alongside panic disorder.