Causes and Types of Anxiety Disorders

Causes and Types of Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety is an emotion where you feel nervous about a situation. In normal circumstances, this emotion disappears after the crisis is over. Sometimes anxiety Houston helps you notice harmful conditions, keeping you safe. If the feeling persists for a long time or prevents you from doing daily activities or leaving your house, it can lead to anxiety disorder. Anxiety disorder is a mental problem that makes you respond to specific situations in fear and dread. Anxiety disorder symptoms include nervousness, panic, fear, sweating, and rapid heartbeat. It may be difficult to control your emotions or responses to problems.

Causes

Chemical imbalance can lead to anxiety disorder. Long-term or severe stress can imbalance the chemicals that control your moods. Environmental factors like traumas, relationships, and family issues can trigger anxiety disorder. You can also inherit anxiety disorders from one or both of your parents. If you inherit this condition, environmental factors will easily affect you. Medical issues like chronic pain can also trigger anxiety.

Types

Generalized anxiety disorder

Generalized anxiety disorder involves feeling extreme, unrealistic worry and tension. These feelings happen even if you have nothing triggering them. In most cases, you will worry about many issues like health, work, school, and relationships. The anxiety happens one topic after the other. The symptoms of a generalized anxiety disorder include restlessness, concentration, and sleeping difficulties.

Panic disorder

Panic disorder involves getting intense, sudden panic attacks. In this disorder, you experience more intense feelings than others. Panic attacks sometimes resemble heart attacks and are very upsetting. The feelings of fear can begin suddenly and unexpectedly or may be triggered by a situation. During a panic attack, you can experience sweating, heart palpations, chest pain, and a choking feeling.

Phobias

Phobia is an intense fear of particular issues or objects. Some of these may make sense, like fear of wild animals. In most cases, your fear levels do not match the problem. You will spend a lot of time trying to avoid things that trigger the phobia. Phobias can alter your routine activities as you try to avoid daily situations. You may have phobias where you fear something like blood, snake, heights, and injections.

Social anxiety disorder

Healthcare providers also refer to social anxiety disorder as social phobia. You may find yourself overwhelmed and self-conscious about daily social happenings. Social phobia lowers your self-esteem where you worry about others judging you or anxious about embarrassing yourself. You cannot also open up to people for fear of ridicule. If you have a social anxiety disorder, you avoid social gatherings entirely.

Agoraphobia

Agoraphobia involves an intense fear of being overwhelmed or unable to get help. You may fear environments like enclosed spaces, crowds, open spaces, public transportation, or locations outside your house. In severe cases of agoraphobia, you may not leave your home at all. You prefer staying indoors due to fear of getting a panic attack when you are outdoors.

Fortunately, anxiety disorders are treatable. Your doctor can use medications or psychotherapies to treat and manage your condition. Schedule an appointment at Houston Medical-Mental Health Clinic for anxiety disorder treatment to control your feelings appropriately.