Anxiety is a normal reaction to being in a worrying or stressful situation. It’s the feeling you get before a first date or an important exam. What’s not normal is to experience anxiety most or all of the time.

 If you’re constantly on edge and full of worries about everything from choosing what to wear to events on the news that you have no control over, you could have generalized anxiety disorder.

Other kinds of anxiety disorders include phobias — extreme fears that focus on something specific, like clowns or spiders, and social anxiety disorder, where being with other people causes your anxiety to spike.

Anxiety doesn’t just make you feel dread and apprehension. You can also experience physical symptoms and other problems, including:

• Nausea
• Sweating
• Headaches
• Stomachaches
• Problems sleeping
• Rapid heart rate
• Fast, shallow breathing
• Trembling
• Difficulty concentrating
• Irritability

Many people with anxiety experience panic attacks. These highly distressing events occur when something pushes you over the edge and triggers an extreme fear response. You might be frozen to the spot, unable to speak or move. Or you might cry or scream uncontrollably.

However a panic attack affects you, it’s never pleasant, and people who experience them are likely to do anything to avoid another one. This can lead to an inability to work and social isolation because you’re too afraid to leave home.

Anxiety treatments need to address the causes of your condition. Sometimes that involves undergoing talk therapy or taking anti-anxiety medication — a combination of the two is often most effective.

 The Innovation Medical Group Southwest Territory team also looks at other areas of your life that could be contributing to your anxiety. For example, underlying health problems like hypothyroidism or poorly managed diabetes could increase your risk of mental health issues like depression and anxiety.

 Chronic stress, poor quality sleep, and an unhealthy diet all contribute too. The things people turn to in an effort to relieve anxiety, like smoking, alcohol, and recreational drugs, just worsen the problem.

The Innovation Medical Group Southwest Territory team can help by identifying and treating any health problems, helping you quit smoking and other unhealthy habits, and providing you with stress reduction techniques.