Everybody knows what is felling anxious, the butterflies in your stomach before a first date, the tension you feel when your boss is angry, the way your heart pounds if you are in danger. Anxiety leads him to act. Encourages him to face a threatening situation.What makes you study harder for that exam, and keeps alert when giving a speech. In general, it helps to face situations.
But if you suffer from anxiety disorder, this normally helpful emotion can give a result exactly the opposite: preventing you face a situation and disrupt their daily lives. Anxiety disorders are not just a case of “nerves.” These diseases are often related to the biological makeup and life experiences of an individual and are often hereditary. There are several types of anxiety disorders, each with its own characteristics.
An anxiety disorder can make you feel anxious most of the time without any apparent cause. Or the anxious feelings may be so uncomfortable that to avoid them you may stop some everyday activities. Or you may have occasional bouts of anxiety so intense they terrify and immobilize you.
In the “National Institute of Mental Health” (NIMH), the federal agency that conducts and supports research related to mental disorders, mental health and brain, scientists are learning more and more about the nature of anxiety disorders, their causes and how to mitigate them.
Many people misunderstand these disorders and think individuals should overcome the symptoms by using just willpower.Wishing the symptoms away does not work, but there are treatments that can help. This is why the NIMH has produced this booklet: to help you understand these situations, describe treatments and explain the role of research in the fight to overcome anxiety and other mental disorders.
This brochure gives brief explanations of generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder (which sometimes was accompanied by agoraphobia), specific phobias, social phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder. You can learn more about some of these anxiety disorders through NIMH or other sources. (See list at end of this booklet).