Do I Have Anxiety? The Five Warning Signs

If you're asking yourself the question "Do I have anxiety?" there are factors to consider. The first is your age, as feelings of anxiousness and tension are normally prevalent in younger people. Also, reflect on whether relatives in your immediate family have suffered from anxiety in the past. Research suggests that conditions like generalized anxiety disorder is hereditary.

Disproportionate Reactions

Usually, our body reacts to serious threats with a fight-or-flight response. Adrenalin is secreted, which aids our ability to run and make fast decisions. When thinking "Do I have anxiety?" ask yourself if you tend to overreact to minor problems. Excessive sweating, irritability, and panicking in everyday situations such as a bus being late, could be a warning sign of anxiety. From here, you may need to use stress management techniques to help you calm down.

Shallow Breathing

The right breathing techniques won't just prevent an anxiety attack, but they help to normalize the body during an event. When you take short, sharp breaths, it's difficult for blood to oxygenate. Breathing through your abdomen and inhaling gradually for a few seconds helps. Meanwhile, hyperventilating causes the opposite problem, where too much oxygen is coursing through your veins. This leads to your heart beat escalating, and you feeling faint.

Continual Insecurity

This is a particularly important warning sign of anxiety in children. If you, or someone you love, persistently feels insecure and needs reassurance, they may be feeling anxious. Their worries may be about their health, the cleanliness of the room they're in, or relate to a stressful situation. A negative effect of this will be an inability to concentrate. Awareness of anxiety is therefore important in parents, as it ensures anxious children receive help before it affects their performance in school.

Exhaustion

Many people rely on coffee to stay alert but fail to realize one of the health risks of caffeine is fatigue. By drinking it regularly, you keep levels of adrenalin in the bloodstream high. As your reserves become depleted, you then suffer from adrenal exhaustion. Symptoms include feeling more stressed or unwell than normal, and fatigue even after a full night's sleep. When this happens, cut down on coffee and visit your family doctor.

Phobias

Panic attacks are never pleasant for an anxiety sufferer. Following on from an episode, it's natural for people to prevent a similar attack happening again. One problem is when preventative measures are used to excess, and this could lead to a person's lifestyle being disrupted. For example, if somebody has a panic attack while they're traveling on the train to work, they may develop a phobia of the journey and take another route. If this sounds familiar, ask yourself: "Do I have anxiety?"

If you've been asking yourself "Do I have anxiety?" and these symptoms sound familiar, help is on hand. A physician will be able to provide medication that will reduce your anxiousness. Meanwhile, a psychotherapist provides recommendations on diet, time management, and breathing. Feeling in control is the key to keeping anxiety attacks at bay.