About Anxiety

As you see, anxiety and anxiety disorders are incredibly common. The reasons for having anxiety in today’s world are numerous; the cost of living, inflation, health concerns, job loss, being a parent, school, relationships, etc. These are just to name a few, the list goes on and on and is unique to the individual.

Regardless of how or why anxiety shows up, anxiety is a reaction to stressors. Therefore, the more stress we have in our lives, the most likely we are to experience anxiety. For some people they will only experience anxiety during a job interview, an important test, or during a stressful experience.

For others, anxiety will start to become a daily or even hourly experience. This is when anxiety has shifted from general anxiety to an anxiety disorder. There are five major types of anxiety disorders. These include social anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). More information on these below. Each anxiety disorder has their own unique signs and symptoms that are unique to them. For example social anxiety disorder is the fear of embarrassment or ridicule during social interactions where panic disorder is an ongoing fear of another sudden panic attack. OCD also has its own unique signs and symptoms but the problem with OCD is that it is usually misconstrued by most people.