Types of Anxiety

Who Does Anxiety Affect?

Anxiety can affect anyone, with up to 40 million Americans being diagnosed each year. Women are more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder than men. Despite these numbers, less than 37% of those living with anxiety seek treatment.

There are risk factors that can increase the likelihood of anxiety occurring. These include:

• Having a parent or sibling with an anxiety disorder
• Developing a poor stress response in childhood, which can be exacerbated by poverty, chaotic environment, and abuse
• Being sensitive to caffeine
• Showing characteristics of shyness or nervousness when put in new situations

Physical conditions can also cause the development of anxiety. Heart conditions including arrhythmia as well as certain thyroid conditions can trigger anxiety disorders.

The Different Types of Anxiety and How They Impact Life

Though certain anxiety disorder symptoms can overlap, there are distinct differences between each condition. Many will require talk therapies like cognitive behavioral and medications to manage the conditions. Let’s look at these types of anxiety and how they impact life.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is one of the most common forms of anxiety. It is characterized by persistent feelings of dread, fear, and nervousness. These feelings are not the same as having occasional worries or fears – GAD symptoms occur enough to interfere with day-to-day life. Areas of life that create concern often involve finances, relationships, health, and careers. Common symptoms include:

• Feelings of restlessness, anxiousness, or irritated
• Fatigue
• Difficulty concentrating
• Headaches, muscle aches, or unexplained pains
• Being unable to control feelings of worry
• Difficulties falling asleep and staying asleep
• Digestive problems including nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea

Those living with GAD experience these symptoms on a recurring basis, for months or even years on end. Managing them will involve therapies and possibly medications.

Social Anxiety Disorder

Social anxiety disorder involves fears that appear when in social situations. Being around people makes the affected individual think they are being watched and judged by others, even when it is people they know. Even daily interactions that occur at jobs, school, or while running errands cause intense fear and embarrassment that can lead to the person avoiding these situations altogether.

Symptoms of social anxiety disorder include blushing, sweating, pounding or racing heartbeat, avoiding eye contact, staying away from situations that involve people they don’t know, and feelings of self-consciousness or fear that people will judge them negatively.

Health Anxiety

Health anxiety can present in two different forms. Though the term doesn’t necessarily mean a disorder, there are mental health conditions surrounding physical health.

Illness anxiety disorder – also known as hypochondria – is the fear that severe medical conditions are happening to the body. They often feel normal bodily functions are a sign of an oncoming illness.

There are two ways illness anxiety disorder can present: care-seeking and care-avoidant. Care-seeking involves constantly seeking medical care from multiple providers. This can include frequent urgent care, emergency room, and primary doctor’s office visits. Care-avoidant involves the opposite – the person avoids doctors due to the fear of not being heard or believed.

Care-avoidant is not the same as iatrophobia, or the fear of medical professionals, tests, and facilities. Those living with iatrophobia will completely avoid hospitals and doctor’s offices no matter how ill they become. This fear can stem from trauma of a previous medical experience or other fears including needles, blood, infectious disease, and injuries.

Panic Disorder

Panic disorder involves experiencing unexpected panic attacks. These can occur with or without warning and frequency varies throughout each year. A panic attack is a sudden onset of intense fear and a sense of losing control when there is no imminent danger. Anyone can experience a panic attack, but that does not guarantee the development of panic disorder.

Symptoms during a panic attack include:

• Racing heart
• Sweating
• Trembling
• Chest pain
• Feelings of impending doom
• Feelings of being out of control
• Feelings that death is near

Certain situations can trigger a panic attack to occur again in the future. For example, if one happened previously in a specific aisle of the grocery store, it is possible to have another one in that spot. With panic disorder, it is crucial to identify triggers to better understand them and work through them.

When Anxiety Becomes a Problem: What Should Your Next Steps Be?

Anxiety disorders can quickly turn from a simple disruption to a full-on life interference. If anxiety is causing you to avoid certain people, places, or situations, it is time to talk to your doctor. Anxiety does not have to take away the things in life you enjoy or keep you from accomplishing your goals. Your doctor will be able to steer you on a treatment path that works for you. This can include trying different anti-anxiety medications and therapy techniques that help you understand your triggers and learn to cope with them in a healthy way.

How Is Anxiety Diagnosed?

Because anxiety disorders are medical conditions, only a medical or mental health professional can diagnose them. They will take a detailed history of the symptoms you experience as well as a full physical exam to rule out underlying conditions. Once they have a clear picture of your history, they can move on to the next steps.

One of the most common questionnaires to determine anxiety is the GAD-7. It consists of a list of questions and the person rates their feelings on a scale of 1 to 3. The symptoms reflect how they have been feeling in the last 2 weeks. The doctor will tally the score to determine the level of anxiety the person is feeling.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, describes the criteria for each anxiety disorder in full. Your doctor will consult these criteria to determine which type of anxiety you have and the best course of action to manage it in the future. They can also determine if there are other co-occurring mental health conditions such as depression, substance use disorder, or mood disorder.

Getting Help for Anxiety in Hillsborough County, FL

Anxiety can plague your life and make it feel impossible to make it through each day. The good news is there are options available to reduce these feelings and begin the path to move forward. Treatment for anxiety will give you the tools needed to develop healthy coping skills to manage anxiety symptoms and get you back to living your best life. There is no need to keep living in fear or worry – it is time to leave anxiety behind and get back to living.

If you or someone you love is managing an anxiety disorder, there is hope to live without fear. Clean Recovery Centers has an expert team of mental health professionals ready to address and treat your anxiety no matter the type. Our unique, three-phase approach offers therapy and medication options to help you manage your anxiety. Once you enter the outpatient phase, telehealth treatment options will be available to ease access to your treatment. Call us today at (888) 330-2532 to learn more about our program offerings.

Get clean. Live clean. Stay clean.

FAQs About the Types of Anxiety

What are the most common types of anxiety?

One of the most common types of anxiety is generalized anxiety disorder, though phobias and panic disorder are also known to affect many.

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