Anxiety Disorder
Anxiety is a normal and inevitable part of human experience. We all know what it feels like to be nervous - even extremely anxious - about a big date, exam, job interview, important speech, or some other life event. A certain amount of anxiety is helpful as it provides energy, excitement, and focus for the task. However, in a significant proportion of people anxiety can become incessant, extreme, and out of proportion to the situation, despite the person's best efforts to stay calm. When anxiety interferes significantly with a persons life or wellbeing it is often referred to as an anxiety disorder.Common anxiety-related problems and types of anxiety disorder include:
- Social anxiety including fear of public speaking
- Excessive worry
- Panic attacks
- Posttraumatic reactions
- Fears and phobias
- Obsessions and compulsions
If anxiety gets out of hand, it can interfere with enjoying life and reaching your potential. An anxiety disorder can hold you back at work, stop you doing things you'd like to do, interfere with social and family relationships, and undermine confidence and self esteem. People often become quite depressed about feeling excessively anxious, which only makes their situation more stressful, isolating, and difficult.
The good news is that anxiety disorder is treatable. A substantial amount of research in the last few decades has focussed on understanding and treating anxiety and anxiety disorders. This has given us a good understanding of what underlies various different anxiety conditions, and what helps to overcome them.
Unfortunately, many of the things that people do to reduce their anxiety in the short term may exacerbate their anxiety in the long term. Evidence-based treatments for anxiety and anxiety disorder seek to break this cycle, by helping you to understand what really drives your anxiety, and teaching you skills and strategies to cultivate normal levels of anxiety for the long run.
Click here to learn more about anxiety disorder in teenagers and adolescents.