TranslateTypes of Anxiety
What are the different types of anxiety disorder?
When your anxiety keeps coming back or sticks around a long time, it could be a sign of an anxiety disorder that you might need help to cope with. Differnet types of anxiety have unique characteristics and can cause your body to react in different ways or come out in physical symptoms.
Agoraphobia
This is an intense anxiety which sets off a panic response that is often linked to open spaces and can even be anywhere that's outside your own home. This kind of anxiety usually crops up in working age adults between 18 and 35.
Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
This is the anxiety disorder doctors most often see and it usually happens to young adults. As we've said before, it's normal for people to feel anxious sometimes but people with GAD find it hard to stop these feelings interfering with their day to day life.
Panic
Our bodies react to fear and dangerous situations in a very particular way. Panic is when your body reacts this way to situations, stresses and moments of excitement that are fairly every day. The symptoms can include things like a pounding heart, the feeling of your "heart in your mouth", faintness or dizziness, sweating, shaky arms and legs, feeling sick, chest pains, breathing problems and the sense of losing control.
Phobia
Phobias are very strong fears of a specific object or situation (such as spiders, bridges or thunder) that are often intense or don't make sense. They make people go to great lengths to avoid coming into contact with the situation.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
This is a reaction to having experienced a highly traumatic event. People often have flashbacks to the event or nightmares about it many years after it actually happened. This can cause them to avoid anything that is likely to remind them of the event and trigger a reaction.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorders (OCD)
People can have obsessive thoughts or feelings that repeat themselves over and over and prevent them carrying out their normal activites. These feelings often drive people to act in a certain way or develop very repetitive routines to help stop the thoughts playing over.
Social anxiety disorder (social phobia)
This is a persistent fear about social situations and being around people. It is one of the most often seen anxiety disorders. Much more than just "shyness", social anxiety disorder causes intense, overwhelming fear over what may just be an everyday activity like shopping or talking on the phone
Health Anxiety
Most of us worry about our health from time to time. But for some people, this worry never goes away and becomes a problem in itself. Health anxiety is obsessive worrying about your health, usually to the point where it causes great distress and affects your ability to function properly.
