Anxiety
What Is It?
Anxiety is a natural human reaction to danger. Anxiety is your body’s survival mechanism—alerting you whenever your body feels threatened. Everyone has some level of anxiety; however, levels differ in each person ranging from mild to severe.
What Does It Feel Like?
For those with mild anxiety, they may feel uneasy or nervous in certain situations; whereas, those with severe anxiety may feel fearful, dreadful and even panicked in situations. Physical signs of anxiety include rapid heartbeat, shallow breathing, tense muscles, sweaty palms, queasy stomach, and trembling hands or legs.
What Does It Look Like?
Anxiety can take many forms. Some of the most common forms of anxiety include:
- Generalized Anxiety: The constant worrying of events usually in the future.
- Social Anxiety: The fear of being negatively judged or rejected by others in a social situation.
- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD): Reoccurring or unwanted thoughts, ideas or sensations that make them feel driven to do something repeatedly.
- Panic Attacks: Sudden or intense physical symptoms such as pounding heart, shortness of breath, dizziness, numbness, or tingling feelings caused by over activity of the body’s normal fear response. These episodes can occur randomly or for no apparent reason.
- Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): Results from a traumatic or terrifying experience where the individual may experience flashbacks, nightmares, or constant fear after the fact.
- Phobias: Intense fears of specific situations or things such as rollercoasters and germs.
Did You Know?
1 in every 4 teens (ages 13-18) in the U.S. suffers from some form of anxiety. Don’t ever feel alone!
What Are Some Ways I Can Reduce My Anxiety?
- Get a goodnights sleep
- Eat well balanced meals with an abundance of fruits and veggies
- Exercise daily
- Learn what triggers your anxiety and write about it
- No one is perfect so stop aiming for it. Just be the best you can be and recognize your accomplishments!
- Reach out to friends, parents, or school counselors and let them know how your feeling so they can help
Take the Anxiety Quiz!
https://depression.org.nz/is-it-depression-anxiety/self-test/