If you suffer from anxiety or experience frequent panic attacks, you might sometimes feel that you're all alone. But the good news is you are not alone. Many people have anxiety, but few like to talk about it. In fact, most anxiety sufferers try to hide their condition for fear of being ridiculed or looked down upon. Phobias can affect you at any point in your life. Some people are born with natural phobias or develop them as a child while others develop phobias later in life. Anxiety may affect you suddenly without warning, or it may develop gradually over several months or years.

What is Anxiety Disorder?

Anxiety disorder is a condition in which a person has sudden emotions of fear, agony and worry - usually when there is no good reason to have these fears. Anxiety can be characterized by an unusually fast heartbeat rate, headaches, breathing problems, sweating, and even pain in the chest area. Panic attacks occur when a person has extreme anxiety. Though being anxious is a person's normal defense mechanism against perceived risk or threat, it can get out of hand for those who suffer from anxiety due to unfounded fears.

A specific phobia related to anxiety is agoraphobia, a term derived from the Greek words "agora" and "phobos." It literally translates as the phrase "a fear of the marketplace." This phobia causes panic attacks in situations where a person may feel insecure or trapped, particularly in large crowds of people. Agoraphobics may experience a panic attack while on a crowded elevator, in a crowded room, or while on a train or bus. They feel that there is no escape and will begin to breathe heavily and become very nervous. Someone with a severe case may remain confined to their own home - or their safety zone. Traditionally, this phobia occurs among women about twice as much as in men.

Help for Anxiety

There are multiple ways to seek help for your anxiety. If your anxiety is very severe and you have very frequent panic attacks, you'll want to seek the counsel of a doctor. If your anxiety happens only occasionally and is not at a severe level, you'll likely benefit from self-help resources. And today on the Internet, you can find many self-help books, audio files (for computers or iPods), CDs, and online information to help relieve the symptoms of anxiety. Even if you seek the help of a doctor, you may still take advantage of self-help tools for the times you need help in between your visits.

Some self-help methods you'll notice when reading or listening to anxiety materials include breathing and meditation exercises, tips to face fears, how to change your diet to decrease anxiety episodes, how to stop avoiding people and situations that make you anxious, and how to calmly accept the fears of anxiety. You can learn relaxation techniques to help your body and mind relax when you feel anxiety creeping up on you. Anxiety resources may also help overcome other phobias so these are definitely worthy investments.

Anxiety disorder can not only affect your personal home life, it can greatly affect your social life. Fears can cause you to avoid any situation where you must meet new people or take on new tasks. With anxiety self-help resources, you can put these fears behind you and enjoy a renewed sense of belonging in your community.