What Are The Symptoms Of Anxiety?

What Are The Symptoms Of Anxiety?

Recognizing anxiety is fairly easy. We all feel anxious from time to time throughout our lives. That anxiety is usually short term -- lasting a day or less -- or mid-term -- lasting several days or weeks during a normally stressful period. Anxiety is a normal thing in life. It is part of our "fight or flight" response system, and when a situation occurs that stresses us, we feel anxious.

But anxiety is not always normal. You may feel anxious and discover that there is really nothing to be anxious about in your life at the moment. If this is a problem that persists, you may be suffering from an anxiety disorder. If your anxiety is constant -- to the point where it is consuming your life -- it is a problem. This type of anxiety could even cause you to fear certain situations, which in turn causes you to isolate yourself.

Note that feeling anxious and having an anxiety or panic attack are in fact two different things. If you feel anxious, you may be worried or even feel fearful. However, when you are having an anxiety attack, there are physical symptoms that you will have along with it, such as:

1. Being short of breath
2. Chest pain
3. Shaking or trembling
4. Pounding heart or palpitations
5. Dizziness
6. Nausea
7. Hot or cold flashes

Along with the worry and fear, if you feel these symptoms, you may think that you are having a heart attack. You may even fear that you are going to die. While all of this is very scary, and treatment should be sought, the good news is that nobody has ever died from an anxiety attack. People do, however, die of a heart attack, which has similar symptoms, mistakenly thinking it is a panic attack.

The best thing to do, if you are feeling anxious, is to seek treatment for the anxiety before you suffer an anxiety attack. Treatment for anxiety is twofold -- treating the mental state as well as treating the physical state.