Everyone occasionally experiences anxiety: a feeling of fear, nervousness, or dread accompanied by restlessness or tension. Its main symptoms—heart palpitations, shortness of breath, stomachaches, or headaches—are largely due to the body’s involuntarily preparations to deal with a threat with a fight-or-flight response. Visible signs of anxiety may include pale skin, sweating, and trembling.

Anxiety can be useful, alerting us to danger or giving us energy to get things done. Its stressful symptoms usually fade quickly after the perceived threat is gone—when you reach the end of a dark alley or finally complete the exam you’ve been worried obsessive-compulsive about. For many people, however, anxiety that does not fade with time can turn into one of several crippling mental illnesses known as anxiety disorders.

There are several forms of anxiety disorders. With generalized anxiety disorder, a person may worry constantly and disproportionately about something innocuous, such as the well-being of a perfectly healthy child. Shorter, repetitive, and more extreme episodes of anxiety may be classified as panic disorder—a tendency toward panic attacks that usually last about 5 to 30 minutes and may include dizziness, chest tightness, and the fear that you’re going crazy or are about to die.

Other types of anxiety disorders include intense, irrational fears of specific objects or events (phobias); recurring, unwanted thoughts and repetitive behaviors (obsessive-compulsive disorder); and panic episodes stemming from troublesome events in the past (post-traumatic stress disorder). These disorders may be caused by a chemical imbalance or an unconscious memory and may be thought of as a malfunctioning alarm in the brain that is mistakenly triggered when there is no real threat. Treatment can involve medications, talk therapy, or breathing and relaxation exercises.

ADDITIONAL FACTS

  1. “Test anxiety” is a specific type of apprehension felt by students—of any age—who have a fear of failing and being evaluated negatively by teachers, superiors, and peers. Sweating, dizziness, headaches, racing heartbeat, nausea, fidgeting, and finger drumming are all common symptoms of test anxiety. In 2006, approximately 49 percent of high school students reportedly experienced this condition.
  2. In small children, the fear of strangers is a protective developmental response toward those who are not parents or family members. Anxiety when interacting with unknown people can also be a common phase in young people. For others, it may persist into adulthood and become social anxiety or social phobia.
  3. The “ father of existentialism,” Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855), used the Danish word angest (meaning “anxiety” or “dread”) in 1844 to describe a spiritual condition of insecurity and despair among free human beings in constant fear of failing in their responsibilities to God, to their own principles, and to others. The modern word angst is also commonly used to describe teenage frustration and melancholy.