It's normal to get butterflies every now and then. Anxiety disorders go way beyond that; they're much more severe and must last at least six months to be diagnosed. Anxiety disorders include panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), phobias, social anxiety disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder. Treatments include counseling and medication. In any given year, about 40 million U.S. adults experience anxiety disorders and Anxiety disorders "should be considered an important public health problem as they may make certain physical health problems more likely. Daily life becomes a constant state of worry, fear and dread. Eventually, the anxiety so dominates the person's thinking that it interferes with daily functioning, including work, school, social activities and relationships.

Anxiety is Not For The Faint Of Heart

Anxiety is felt by almost everyone at some time or the other and it involves a mixture of emotions consisting of fear, apprehension as well as worry and very often there is accompanying physical sensations such as palpitations, nausea, chest pain as well as shortness of breath. Doctors say that anxiety is in many cases considered to be cognitive, somatic, and emotional and has several behavioral mechanisms. To begin with, the cognitive mechanism implies that the patient expects or has a diffusion of uncertain danger.

Anxiety Symptoms You Cannot Control

In the case of somatic anxiety, the body makes ready the organism to cope with a threat that is known as emergency reaction, where blood pressure as well as heart rates increases and there is also sweating and increased blood flow to the key muscle groups. On the outside, somatic signs may appear in the form of paleness of skin, sweating, trembling as well as dilation of the pupils.

Anxiety Symptoms and Causes

In the case of emotional anxiety, the patient feels a sense of foreboding or panic and is physically afflicted with nausea as well as cold chills. In the case of behavioral anxiety, which may either be voluntary or involuntary, it may cause the patient to attempt to flee or avoid the source and such behaviors are recurrent as also maladaptive and are the most extreme types of disorders. This does not however, mean that anxiety is always maladaptive or pathological. It is a usual emotion that coexists with fear, anger, sadness and happiness and plays a vital role in the survival of the patient.

From a medical point of view, anxiety is thought to be caused by neural circuitry that involves amygdale as well as hippocampus. When the patient is confronted with stimuli that are neither pleasant nor harmless and these include foul smells and odors or tastes there are bound to be an increased flowing of the blood in the amygdale. It may result in moderate levels of anxiety and this indicates that it is a mechanism that protects in order to prevent the organism from taking part in potentially detrimental behaviors such as eating food that is rotten.

A patient's life may be seriously affected when he or she has continually recurring cases of anxiety and this can be clinically diagnosed. The most common of these disorders are generalized anxiety disorders, panic disorders, social anxiety disorders, phobias, obsessive compulsive disorders as well as posttraumatic stress disorders.