Anxiety

What is Anxiety?

Experiencing anxiety and apprehension towards future oriented events are normal experiences that occurs as part of daily life.

When experiencing a perceived threat, it’s normal to experience fear.

However, when the anxiousness is intense and individuals find it difficult to manage, these anxious sensations may affect daily functioning, and causing one to feel distressed.

Types of Anxiety Disorders:

• Panic Attacks: A discrete period of a sudden onset of intense apprehension, fear, or impending doom, with 4 or more of the following symptoms of panic (see below), peaking within 10 minutes.
• Panic Disorder: characterised by recurrent unexpected panic attacks (see below) about which there is a persistent concern.
• Agoraphobia: characterized by anxiety about, or avoidance of places or situations from which escape may be difficult in which may not be available in event of having panic-like symptoms. Situations typically include being outside home alone, being in a crowd, or on public transport.
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder: characterized by at least 6 months of persistent and excessive anxiety and worry.
• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: described by the obsessions (marked anxiety or distress), and/or compulsions (actions taken to neutralize the anxiety).
• Specific Phobias: significant anxiety provoked by an exposure to a specific feared object or situation, leading to avoidance behaviours.
• Social Phobias: significant anxiety provoked by exposure to social or performance tyle situations, leading to avoidance behaviours.

Signs and Symptoms of Anxiety/ Panic:

• Physiological symptoms: Shortness of breath, palpitations, discomfort of the chest, choking sensations, trembling/shaking, nausea, feeling dizzy/lightheaded, numbness, chills or hot flushes, sweating,
• Excessive & uncontrollable worry and excessive vigilance
• Feeling tense, on edge, irritable.
• Sleep disturbances.
• Avoidance of the situation/stimuli that may be causing the anxiousness

Should I Seek Help?

If you are experiencing these phenomena, you may wish to seek support to manage the overwhelming signs of anxiety:

• Feelings of anxiety interfering with your daily functioning, and/or relationships with others.
• When situations (work, school, social settings) are avoided due to anxiousness
• When we experience extreme physiological responses towards stressful situations (i.e. shortness of breath, tightness of the chest, muscle tension, sleep disruptions).

Psychotherapy can help with uncovering the causes of your worries and fears and to provide you with a toolbox of skills for relaxation and enhance your coping and problem-solving strategies.