Anxiety is more than just feeling stressed or worried about something. While stress and anxious feelings are a common response to a situation where a person feels under pressure, it usually passes once the stressful situation has passed, or the trigger removed.
Anxiety is when these anxious feelings don’t go away and they stay around, seemingly without reason. Anxiety is a serious condition that can make it hard for an individual to cope with daily life. Most people feel anxious from time-to-time, but for a person experiencing anxiety, these feelings cannot be easily controlled.
The symptoms of anxiety can often develop gradually over time, often meaning it is difficult to know when things have got ‘too much’. In order to be diagnosed with anxiety, the condition must have a disabling impact on the person’s life. There are many different types of anxiety with a range of symptoms for each.
Some common symptoms include:
- hot and cold flushes
- racing heart
- tightening of the chest
- out-of-control, ever-growing worries
- obsessive thinking and compulsive behaviour
