Generalized anxiety is all about chronic worrying, stress and tension. There’s no ~one thing~ that you are anxious over, instead it feels like everything causes us excessive worry.

A panic attack is an episode where you feel intense terror and a sense of doom – like disaster could strike at any moment. Common symptoms include:

• A racing heartbeat

• Abrupt sweating, or a sudden chill in the body

• Feeling faint, dizzy, or weak

• Numbing or tingling of hands

• Chest pain or a feeling of heaviness (can feel like a you’re having a heart attack)

• Loss of control

• A fear of dying

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When it comes to Panic Disorder, symptoms can strike without warning (rude). Going about your day with the fear that an attack could rear its head is anxiety-provoking and let’s be honest, exhausting. This can lead to being constantly on edge in the hopes of avoiding triggering a panic attack e.g., avoid driving to work, socializing or even leaving your home.

Agoraphobia is a fear of having a panic attack in public or unfamiliar spaces (sometimes even when thinking about leaving your own home). This fear leads you to avoid places that feel threatening or inescapable. In extreme cases, you may be confined to your home as it becomes the only place that feels safe.

Acute Stress Disorder begins shortly after experiencing a life-threatening situation. Intrusive symptoms such as flashbacks, nightmares and feeling out of touch with reality can occur. Symptoms usually show up 3 days to 1 month after the traumatic event.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) begins some weeks, months or even years after experiencing a life-threatening situation. PTSD has similar symptoms to acute stress disorder but will often last for months or years after the traumatic event.

Does socializing with other people induce a fear of intense panic? Do you worry about being judged by others? Or that you’ll embarrass yourself?

If you’ve been aggressively nodding along, then you may be experiencing social anxiety.

Those of us with social anxiety tend to feel like the most incompetent person in the room. This can be experienced across a range of settings including: a fear of talking to your boss, going on a date, or public speaking.

Did you know that public speaking has been rated more terrifying than dying? – This is because social rejection activates the same fear response as death. Wild stuff.

An experience of panic at the thought, sight, touch or even smell of a feared object or event. E.g., a fear of heights, spiders, needles, driving over bridges or even of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth (yes, it’s a real thing folks).

Specific phobias can attach themselves to any object or situation and one in ten people suffer from specific phobias at some stage in life.

Side note: a phobia is not just about being fearful, but rather an intensely felt irrational fear. Many are aware of the irrationality – but despite this awareness – intense anxiety prevails.