Anxiety disorders include uncomfortable, hard-to-control, and protracted feelings of anxiety that could interfere with your daily activities. What are their types, and how can you cope with one?

Each of us responds differently to stressful situations. Most of us will experience anxiety symptoms from time to time, such as stress, nervousness, worry, or fear, until the stressful event or situation has passed. For example, you might worry when faced with a challenge at work, before a test, or before making a crucial decision. Your brain uses this natural biological response to respond to stress and warn you of potential danger. 

However, an anxiety disorder occurs if your symptoms persist, worsen, or start to affect your daily life. In this situation, even when a stressor is not present, you’ll probably feel overpowering anxiety that can be excessive and persistent. Anxiety disorders frequently involve recurrent episodes of intense anxiety, fear, or terror that peak in a matter of minutes. People who struggle with anxiety disorders frequently experience intense, excessive, ongoing worry and fear about commonplace events. 

To stop these feelings, you might avoid specific locations or circumstances. However, despite these adverse effects, many people with anxiety disorders can learn to cope with their emotions with the proper treatment and support.

Read on to know more!

Types of Anxiety Disorders

1- Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)

Which includes an excessive amount of persistent worry that interferes with daily activities. Physical signs like agitation, a tense or easily exhausted feeling, trouble concentrating, muscle tension, or difficulty sleeping may also be present along with this ongoing worry and tension. The worry is generally excessive compared to the situation, hard to control, and impacts how you physically feel. It frequently co-occurs with depression or other anxiety disorders.

If you have GAD, your worries will frequently center on routine issues like work obligations, family health, or unimportant things like chores, work tasks, or appointments. It manifests itself in rumination or spending a lot of time overthinking various future events, like how they may turn out and how you may handle them.

2- Panic disorder 

This includes repeated episodes of sudden, intense anxiety, fear, or terror that peak in intensity in minutes. Shortness of breath, chest pain, or a rapid, fluttering, or pounding heart are possible signs. These panic attacks may cause you to worry that they’ll happen again, so try to avoid situations where they’ve happened. A primary symptom that you may notice is recurrent panic attacks, which is a crippling complication of both physical and psychological distress.

Many people who experience a panic attack may think they are experiencing a heart attack or another serious illness because the symptoms are so severe. In some cases, panic attacks can be anticipated, caused by a trigger to a feared object, and at other times it is unexpected and could occur for no apparent reason.

3- Social anxiety disorder 

This entails high anxiety, fear, and avoidance of social situations. These symptoms are brought on by feelings of embarrassment, self-consciousness, and worry about being viewed negatively by others. A person with a social anxiety disorder experiences intense anxiety and discomfort when they are around others and risks being abandoned, looked down upon, or embarrassed. 

People with this disorder frequently experience anxiety when in social situations, are embarrassed in front of others, and worry about offending or being rejected by others. Other common symptoms include having a hard time making friends, avoiding social situations, worrying for days before a social event, and feeling shaky, sweaty, or nauseous when spending time in a social setting.

How to Help Yourself?

People who struggle with anxiety disorders frequently experience emotional overload and react negatively to unpleasant feelings and circumstances. They try to deal with these adverse reactions by avoiding things that make them anxious. However, avoiding situations can have the opposite effect and make anxiety worse.

Through therapy, one may have more productive coping mechanisms and gain insight into how their thoughts affect their anxiety symptoms. They can lessen the likelihood and severity of anxiety symptoms by learning to alter those thought patterns.

Additionally, here are some ways to cope with anxiety disorders:

Identify and learn to manage your triggers

Sometimes your triggers are plain to see, while they may not be as obvious other times. Long-term issues, such as those involving family or the workplace, may take some time to identify—is it a deadline, a person, or the circumstance? When you identify your trigger, you could try to reduce your exposure to it. Using other coping mechanisms may be helpful if you cannot monitor its occurrence, such as if it is caused by a stressful work environment that you cannot currently change.

Keep a journal

Make it a daily routine to record your thoughts and feelings in a journal. For some people, simply writing their thoughts down can be calming. However, it can also assist you in keeping track of when, how, and what kinds of things cause your anxiety.

Focus on what you can change

Anxiety is often caused by worrying about events that may never happen or haven’t even happened yet. For instance, even if everything is fine, you might still be concerned about potential problems like losing your job, getting sick, or ensuring the safety of your loved ones. Change your perspective on your fears to replace them. Taking action in this circumstance might be the key to lowering your anxiety. 

Practice positive self-talk. 

Unnecessary worst-case scenarios and even unlikely events may cross your mind at times. Considering them logically and convincing yourself to react more positively can be beneficial. This rethinking or reframing could be a component of cognitive-behavioral therapy. Even in the face of brief setbacks, you can still practice mental empowerment. 

Anxiety disorders can be challenging and frustrating. You may feel worn out and afraid due to your ongoing stressors and fears.

However, with some patience and practice, you can learn to live and cope with them!