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Anxiety Types
What type of anxiety do you suffer from?
Because feelings of anxiety are so common, Western medicine makes a distinction between 'normal' anxiety, associated with a difficult situation, and an 'anxiety disorder'. Anxiety disorders are characterised by persistent feelings of anxiety that significantly interfere with a person's daily life and their effectiveness.
This distinction between 'normal' anxiety and 'anxiety disorder' is made simply in regard to the degree and effects of the anxiety, how long it persists, and the circumstances under which it arises. In both cases the actual anxiety is the same, as are the fundamental processes that cause it to arise. Because The InSync Freedom from Anxiety Program works with these fundamental processes, it is effective regardless of whether or not someone's anxiety has been labelled as a particular 'anxiety disorder'. There are many types of anxiety disorders and people will often have symptoms of more than one.
Common anxiety disorders are as follows:
Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
People with GAD feel anxious most days over a prolonged period. They could worry about anything, including issues such as finances, illness or family problems. This can impact on their relationships and their daily activities. They may feel edgy, tense, tired, critical or have trouble concentrating and sleeping.
Phobia
A phobia is an unreasonable fear of a particular object or situation. Common phobias include:
- Fear of social gatherings, walking into meetings, parties or crowded spaces (social phobia)
- Fear of confined spaces such as lifts, aeroplanes, tunnels, buses, trains, crowds and being hemmed in (claustrophobia)
- Fear of open spaces such as parks and big shopping centres (agoraphobia)
- Fear of animals (zoophobia)
- Fear of heights (acrophobia)
- Fear of dirt and germs in places such as toilets and kitchens (mysophobia)
In most cases the person will recognise that their fear is irrational, but are unable to control it.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Obsessive compulsive disorder is characterised by obsessive thoughts associated with anxiety. These obsessions make a person feel that they need to carry out certain rituals in order to feel less anxious. These behaviours are known as compulsions.
Common obsessions are:
- Fear of forgetting to do things, such as turning off appliances or locking doors
- Fear of being contaminated by things that are unclean
- Fear of being unable to do things in an exact or orderly way
- Fear of becoming sick, having an accident or dying
- Intrusive thoughts about violence, accidents or sex
Common compulsions may include:
- Constantly checking that doors and windows are locked and appliances are turned off
- Very frequent washing of hands or clothes, showering or brushing teeth
- Constantly cleaning, tidying or rearranging things in a particular way
- Continually seeking reassurance by repeatedly asking questions of family and friends
- Exacting rituals around food
- Hoarding items such as newspapers, books, food or clothes
Although these compulsions may originally have risen as a response to feeling unsettled, they usually give minimal transient relief and when repeated frequently over time, often have unfortunate consequences. For example, they can create great dependency and limitation in life, undermining relationships and impacting on our happiness at home and at work.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
PTSD involves bursts of anxiety that arise in the months or years after a person experiences a major emotional shock or traumatic event. PTSD can be brought on by situations such as:
- War
- A major accident
- A natural disaster (bush fire, hurricane or cyclone)
- Physical, sexual, emotional or verbal abuse
- Being neglected or abandoned
- Trauma associated with a serious illness
- Any shocking or intense experience
The symptoms of PTSD include:
- Flashbacks e.g. upsetting intrusive thoughts about a distressing event
- Nightmares
- Difficulty sleeping
- Loss of interest in activities that the person used to find enjoyable
- Feeling on edge or irritable
- Being very alert and easily startled
- Trouble concentrating
- Inability to accurately remember the traumatic event
Panic Attack
A panic attack is an intense feeling of anxiety or dread that a person seems unable to control. During a panic attack a person may experience:
- Breathing difficulties, such as shortness of breath
- Dizziness and/or nausea
- Tingles, chills or weird sensations
- Sweating
- Trembling
- Chest pain, rapid heart beat and/or a tight feeling in the chest
- Intensely fearful thoughts.
As panic develops, people resist the contractions and unsettled sensations in the body and the scary thoughts. This resistance intensifies the panic further and leads people to have thoughts such as "I must be going crazy", "I'm having heart attack", "I'm going to die" or "something really bad is going to happen".
For many people, panic attacks happen only occasionally when they are stressed. For others however, an initial attack can lead to fears of another attack at a later stage. What keeps us caught in the anxiety and panic cycle is fear of the fear. If a person has a panic attack at least four times a month, they may be diagnosed as having a panic disorder. To understand more about panic attacks and how to prevent them, view our Freedom from Anxiety Program™