Anxiety stress disorder is the name given to a group of mental conditions where a person's life is disrupted by persistent, excessive, and unreasonable fears, worries or anxiety.
The anxiety stress disorder categories that are recognised are: generalised anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, social disorder, post-traumatic disorder and specific phobias.
Generalised anxiety disorder, as the name suggests, exists where a person's tolerance to the stress of life becomes overloaded to the point where they cannot cope adequately and start to show symptoms of dysfunction.
There may be a build up of stressful situations in a person's life - the worry of a sick family member, financial problems, or such like, and, eventually there comes a point where one more problem is enough to push that person over the edge into an anxiety disorder situation.
The symptoms of generalised anxiety disorder usually comprise several of the following: feeling nervous and irritable, difficulty sleeping, headaches, abdominal pains or diarrhoea, depression, feeling tired all the time, apathy, tightness in the chest, dry mouth, shortness of breath, lack of self-confidence, and not wanting to see friends.
Anybody suffering from several of these symptoms should see their doctor for some advice.
Panic disorder often seems to occur against a backdrop of general anxiety and is characterised by sudden, unexpected bouts of extreme fear and panic for no obvious reason.
These attacks can occur at any time, even during sleep at night, and can be very disturbing.
When an attack occurs there is a rush of adrenaline as the body automatically and mistakenly, goes into emergency mode causing a rapid increase in heart rate and breathing.
This is followed by extreme feelings of fear and doom along with other symptoms such as dizziness, tightness in the chest, headache, blurred vision, nausea, and unsteadiness.
Sometimes these symptoms can be misinterpreted as a heart attack causing even more anxiety.
Panic attacks are not serious in themselves but are to be taken seriously because of the disruption to a person's daily life that they can cause.
Self-help or the treatment by a professional can usually overcome them within a reasonable amount of time.
Obsessive-compulsive anxiety disorder is characterised by persistent disturbing thoughts or obsessions.
These notions have no connection with reality and often the sufferer does not know where they come from.
In an attempt to expunge these thoughts, or sometimes images, the person adopts a compulsive behaviour, undertaking unnecessary repetitive tasks or unusual ritual movements or practices seemingly to distract the mind,.
Social disorder or social phobia is an excessive anxiety about mixing in social circumstances.
A person fears that he or she will act in a way that will be humiliating or embarrassing.
Sometimes the person thinks that they are being continually scrutinised or judged.
They often recognise that their fears are irrational yet seem unable to overcome them without some form of help or counselling.
Post-traumatic stress disorder is a situation where a heightened degree of anxiety remains following a traumatic event.
This event or disaster is serious enough that life is threatened or actually lost.
A car crash or terror attack can cause sufficient emotional upset that the event is revisited in the mind for a long time afterwards, causing a degree of anxiety that upsets a person's normal life.
The condition can be satisfactorily overcome with the correct form of psychotherapy.