Anxiety

Anxiety is an unpleasant state that involves a complex combination of emotions that include fear, apprehension, and worry. It differs from the fear, 'cos it usually has a non-specific cause. It is often accompanied by physical sensations such as heart palpitations, nausea, chest pain, shortness of breath, or tension headache.

Anxiety is often described as having four components, such as:

• Cognitive: it's characterized by expectation of a diffuse and uncertain danger.
• Somatic: he body prepares the organism to deal with threat, so blood pressure and heart rate are increased, sweating is increased, bloodflow to the major muscle groups is increased, and immune and digestive system functions are inhibited. Externally, somatic signs of anxiety may include pale skin, sweating, trembling, and pupillary dilation.
• Emotional: anxiety causes a sense of dread or panic and physically causes nausea, and chills.
• Behaviour: both voluntary and involuntary behaviors may arise directed at escaping or avoiding the source of anxiety. These behaviors are frequent and often maladaptive, being most extreme in anxiety disorders.

Actually, anxiety has a protective function from dangerous behaviours that could damage the body. Yet, if it occurs chronically and affects individual's normal life, it becomes a disorder. There are different anxiety disorders, such as:

• Generalized anxiety disorder: it is a common chronic disorder characterized by long-lasting anxiety that is not focused on any particular object or situation. In other words it is unspecific or free-floating. Because of persistent muscle tension and autonomic fear reactions, people may develop headaches, heart palpitations, dizziness, and insomnia.
• Panic disorder: it's characterized by brief attacks of intense terror and apprehension that cause trembling and shaking, dizziness, and difficulty breathing. Although panic attacks sometimes seem to occur out of nowhere, they generally happen after frightening experiences, and prolonged stress. A common complication of panic disorder is agoraphobia -- anxiety about being in a place or situation where escape is difficult or embarrassing.
• Phobias: it involves a strong, irrational fear and avoidance of an object or situation. The person knows the fear is irrational, yet the anxiety remains. Phobic disorders differ from generalized anxiety disorders and panic disorders because there is a specific stimulus or situation that elicits a strong fear response.
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder: it's a type of anxiety disorder primarily characterized by obsessions and/or compulsions. Obsessions are distressing, repetitive, intrusive thoughts or images that the individual often realizes are senseless. Compulsions are repetitive behaviors that the person feels forced or compelled into doing, in order to relieve anxiety.

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