Do you ever feel... like you're anxious or stressed?

What is anxiety?
Anxiety has been described as a feeling of discomfort or unease. It is a normal healthy reaction, and happens to everybody in times of danger or in worrying situations. Your bodily systems speed up, which means that you are ready for action. It also enables your body to respond quickly if necessary. Anxiety becomes a problem when it starts to interfere with our everyday lives.

There are three parts to the feeling of anxiety:

1 Bodily Sensations - These include irregular breathing churning stomach, sweating, racing heart and the need to visit the toilet.
2 Behaviour - This means the may you behave whether it's avoiding the situation, either not going into the situation, or getting out of it as quickly as possible.
3 Thinking - This includes your beliefs and ideas, your mental comments to yourself or your mental pictures about what might happen to you in the situation you fear.

What Are Phobias?
A simple phobia refers to an isolated experience of anxiety, which is linked to a particular object or situation. It can be so severe that it affects your way of life. Some of the most common phobias include:-

Fear of heights
Fear of mice, spiders, rats
Fear of enclosed spaces
Fear of blood and injections

What is a panic attack?
Panic attacks are one of the symptoms of a build-up of stress and anxiety. It is an exaggeration of the body's normal response to fear or terror and is usually accompanied by physical symptoms such as:-

Difficulty in breathing
Dizziness
Palpitations
Chest pains
Shaking
Sweating
Visual difficulty
Jelly legs

Most panic attacks last for between five and twenty minutes. One of the most distressing aspects of suffering from panic attacks is that they may seem completely unpredictable and therefore uncontrollable.

What is obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)?
Obsessive compulsive disorders usually have two aspects:-

1 Obsessive thoughts, which intrude repeatedly into the mind against the will, despite all attempts to get rid of them. These thoughts could include contamination, harming others, going against a social taboo, or some other form of harm occurring.
2 These thoughts are often followed by compulsions, which are acts that are carried out time and time again to reduce anxiety. The symptoms are very distressing and can end up running a persons life, they can often become worse during times of personal stress or change.

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