Anxiety means difficulty shutting off your brain when you are worrying about something. It can come in the form of thoughts (i.e. worrying about something in your life), physical symptoms (i.e. feeling uncomfortable or being distracted by your body), or both. It is often “free-floating” in the sense that it feels like your brain is looking for something to worry about. It is tenacious in that your mind keeps returning to your worries despite your best efforts to stop them.
When anxiety interferes with your ability to function (for example, by disrupting your sleep, energy, or concentration) it can be classified as an anxiety disorder according to the DSM-V or the ICD-10 (the manuals psychologists and psychiatrists use to classify psychological issues).
The most common anxiety disorders are: Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and Social Anxiety Disorder (including Performance Anxiety). The techniques found on this website work well for all of these anxiety disorders. A detailed description of each can be found below.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Generalized anxiety disorder means being a chronic worrier. The anxiety is “generalized” in the sense that people with this disorder can worry about “anything and everything”, including work/school, relationships, health, finances, and the future. They are usually accused of "over-thinking things" and "worrying too much" and they tend to have baseline anxiety (which is to say that they are always at least a little anxious). When it gets intense enough, the anxiety can cause poor sleep, poor energy, poor concentration, irritability, and muscle tension. Mild to moderate levels of anxiety can cause weight gain (due to stress eating), whereas intense anxiety can cause weight loss (due to a loss of appetite). Generalized anxiety disorder is very common and is very responsive to treatment.
Panic Disorder (and Agoraphobia)
First a caveat, Panic disorder is one of the only anxiety disorders that can be triggered just by reading about it. So, if reading about the symptoms has a tendency to produce the symptoms, that is a sign that you might be suffering from the disorder.
Panic attacks are episodes of intense fear (usually of dying or losing control/going crazy) accompanied by at least 5 of the following physical symptoms: palpitations or increased heart rate, sweating, shaking, shortness of breath, choking sensation, chest pain or tightness, nausea, dizziness or lightheadedness, chills or heat sensations, numbness or tingling, derealization or depersonalization. These episodes usually reach a peak intensity within 10 minutes, and at least some of the episodes must come on unexpectedly/out-of-the-blue.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Although not always classified as an anxiety disorder (for example, in the most recent version of the DSM-V), Obsessive-Compulsive disorder has so much in common with anxiety disorders and the treatment is so similar that I still consider it in the same category.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder refers to people who are impaired by obsessions (intrusive, irrational thoughts) and compulsions (physical or mental actions taken to neutralize or counter the obsessions). The most common pairs of obsessions and compulsions are: contamination/washing, perfectionism/correction, symmetry/organizing, danger/checking or repeating, disturbing images or impulses/avoidance of triggers.
Social Anxiety Disorder
Social Anxiety means feeling self-conscious and having a fear of negative evaluation by other people. It is usually most intensely triggered by strangers, groups of peers, authority figures, and people that you admire and/or are attracted to. The anxiety usually takes the form of self-deprecating thoughts such as “They can tell I’m anxious.”, "I am acting weird", “I'm too quiet”, or “They don’t like me.” For some people, social anxiety also or even mainly takes the form of physical symptoms such as sweating, blushing, heart racing, chest tightness, and/or nausea.
The anxiety, the thoughts, and physical symptoms are all very responsive to treatment.
Performance/Speech Anxiety
While usually classified as a subset of social anxiety disorder, performance and/or public speaking/speech anxiety is unique enough that I discuss it separately. For one thing, many people with performance/speech anxiety do not have shyness at all. For another, many people with shyness are, for some reason, actually fine with giving presentations.
Anticipatory Anxiety
Anticipatory anxiety means worrying about something beforehand. While not a disorder in its own right, anticipatory anxiety is a common symptoms with all of the anxiety disorders. Depending on the event, anticipatory anxiety can start hours, days, or even weeks and months beforehand. With treatment, you should notice that anticipatory anxiety becomes less intense, shorter in duration, and less frequent altogether.
Debriefing Anxiety
Debriefing anxiety refers to ruminating and worrying about an event after it has occurred. Debriefing anxiety can last from days to weeks after an event; and, if you had a particularly bad experience, you can continue to have debriefing anxiety even years later. This form of anxiety is common with all of the anxiety disorders; and, thankfully, is also very responsive to treatment.