Have you ever felt like wanting to vomit but nothing really wants to come out? How about speaking in front of a lot of people and you feel like your heart is racing and your hands are becoming jittery? Having difficulty to keep sitting or going back and forth a hallway especially when waiting for the result of something?
If you did experience these things, you must have been preparing for a future event such as a conversation with one’s boss and one is not sure about what might happen, and what you actually felt was anxiety.
But then again, what is anxiety?
Anxiety is generally defined as a state where the individual manifests nervousness, apprehension and worries about no directly identified cause. Fear is different from anxiety since a direct or specific reason may be identified to cause such emotion in an individual.
Being anxious is part of the human experience since we tend to worry or become tense when doing things especially those that involve uncertain situations or those where we feel threatened about what might happen. The feeling is also not bad at all since studies show that a person must have a certain minimum level of anxiety in order to accomplish tasks properly and keep them focused on doing these things. Most of the time, an assurance or just the company of someone can help ease this feeling. More than answering what is anxiety, being anxious as a problem and a disorder must also be clarified.
Anxiety becomes a problem when such feeling becomes beyond control and expectation in a certain situation. A mild level of anxiety tends to keep the individual focused, alert and motivated to perform tasks but when the feeling escalates to a level that hinders the individual from performing his or her duties then the anxiety must be managed already with medical help.
Anxiety disorders come in many types, with the diagnosis depending on the manifestations and length of symptoms presented by the individual. Post-traumatic stress disorder can be experienced by soldiers who came from the war or those people who underwent experiences that tend to incapacitate them such as disasters or explosions. It has the same manifestations as anxiety plus the presence of hypervigilance, combative behavior and flashbacks.
Separation anxiety disorder is also a kind of pathologic anxiety wherein the individual manifests severe and inappropriate anxiety when separated from a specific person or place. Panic disorder is characterized by presence of attacks showing intense terror, nervousness and hyperventilation which may be triggered by stress and fear.
But the most debilitating form of anxiety disorder is the Generalized Anxiety Disorder or GAD. Unlike the other pathologic types of being anxious which occur in episodes or for a certain period only, GAD is a chronic condition manifested by long-lasting anxiety and these persons have persistent worries about non specific events or objects. Other people might perceive that the person is worrying about not important things whereas the person perceives the fears as real and threatening.
Aside from answering what is anxiety, we must also provide support and understanding so that people suffering from these conditions may live a normal life.