Anxiety

This post is going to be very personal to me as you may or may not know that I suffer really badly with anxiety. I hope that I can help people gain an understanding of what anxiety is and what the symptoms in general for anxiety disorders. 

What is anxiety? 

Anxiety is a feeling of worry, nervousness or unease about something with an uncertain outcome. For example; you could be worried about your exam result before you collect them because you don't know the outcome and if you do bad then you may not know what to do if you didn't get into university. The suspense of waiting to know your results may make you feel uncomfortable.

Everyone has a level of anxiety and will be anxious at some point in life but some people worry too much about a certain situation or everything which makes them feel unstable. The worrying will stay with people who have anxiety disorders which causes them to experience different symptoms.

Did you know 1 in 20 in the UK suffer with a anxiety disorder?

Types of anxiety disorders

Anxiety comes in different forms, these include:

- GAD (Generalised Anxiety Disorder)
- Social Anxiety Disorder
- Panic Disorder
- OCD (Obessive Compulsive Disorder)
- PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)
- Specific Phobias

Symptoms

The symptoms to look out for if you think you may have a anxiety disorder are:

- Feelings of panic, fear or uneasiness.
- Uncontrollable thoughts or Obessive thoughts.
- Repeated thoughts or flashbacks of traumatic experiences.
- Frequent nightmares.
- Ritualistic behaviours like washing your hands repeatively (OCD).
- Insomnia (Trouble getting to sleep or staying to sleep and/or sleeping too much).
- Cold or Clammy hands.
- Shaking/Trembling.
- Shortness of breath.
- Heart palpitations.
- Fidgity (the inability to stay still)
- Dry mouth.
- Numbness/tingling in hands or feet.
- Muscle tension.
- Dizziness.
- Nausea (Vomitting and/or diarrhoea).