What is anxiety, and when is it a problem?

Anxiety is defined as "a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome," a normal feeling in many parts of life. But sometimes it can be excessive, causing someone real distress.

Anxiety Disorders

From the NIMH:

Overview

Occasional anxiety is an expected part of life. You might feel anxious when faced with a problem at work, before taking a test, or before making an important decision. But anxiety disorders involve more than temporary worry or fear. For a person with an anxiety disorder, the anxiety does not go away and can get worse over time. The symptoms can interfere with daily activities such as job performance, school work, and relationships. There are several types of anxiety disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and various phobia-related disorders.

Signs and Symptoms

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

People with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) display excessive anxiety or worry, most days for at least 6 months, about a number of things such as personal health, work, social interactions, and everyday routine life circumstances. The fear and anxiety can cause significant problems in areas of their life, such as social interactions, school, and work. Generalized anxiety disorder symptoms include:

Feeling restless, wound-up, or on-edge
Being easily fatigued
Having difficulty concentrating; mind going blank
Being irritable
Having muscle tension
Difficulty controlling feelings of worry
Having sleep problems, such as difficulty falling or staying asleep, restlessness, or unsatisfying sleep

Panic Disorder

People with panic disorder have recurrent unexpected panic attacks. Panic attacks are sudden periods of intense fear that come on quickly and reach their peak within minutes. Attacks can occur unexpectedly or can be brought on by a trigger, such as a feared object or situation. During a panic attack, people may experience:

Heart palpitations, a pounding heartbeat, or an accelerated heartrate
Sweating
Trembling or shaking
Sensations of shortness of breath, smothering, or choking
Feelings of impending doom
Feelings of being out of control

People with panic disorder often worry about when the next attack will happen and actively try to prevent future attacks by avoiding places, situations, or behaviors they associate with panic attacks. Worry about panic attacks, and the effort spent trying to avoid attacks, cause significant problems in various areas of the person’s life, including the development of agoraphobia (see below).

How to Address It

Historically, there have been several options for treating anxiety disorders, but often these restrict who can get access to these solutions. With Checkmates, you can connect to range of apps that will help with your anxiety. Try using Headspace to practice mediation, which has been linked to a variety of positive health outcomes. The best part is you won't have to do a thing—tracking your activity is made simple with the Checkmates app. It receives your usage data, stores it securely, and passively reports it a mentor who will be able to encourage you to continue to keep up the good work. This model, deemed supportive accountability, is described here [ADD LINK] on our site.