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What Is Anxiety?

Reviewed by Psychology Today Staff

Anxiety is both a mental and physical state of negative expectation. Mentally it is characterized by increased arousal and apprehension tortured into distressing worry, and physically by unpleasant activation of multiple body systems-all to facilitate response to an unknown danger, whether real or imagined.

The cognitive feelings of dread in anticipation of some bad outcome, and physical sensations such as jitteriness and a racing heart are designed for discomfort. Anxiety is meant to capture attention and stimulate you to make necessary changes to protect what you care about. Occasional bouts of anxiety are natural and can even be productive. Anxiety can be considered the price we humans pay for having the ability to imagine the future.

When anxiety becomes a disorder

But persistent, pervasive, or outsize anxiety can disrupt daily life, whether at school, work, or with friends-the mark of an anxiety disorder. Nearly one-third of adults in the U.S. will grapple with out-of-control anxiety at some point in their life.

Anxiety is often accompanied by depression, and the two share many symptoms and involve many of the same brain pathways. Biology can contribute to vulnerability to anxiety, as can childhood experiences such as early trauma and parenting practices such as overprotection.

It is neither possible nor desirable to eliminate anxiety entirely, as it plays a crucial role in keeping us alert and alive. Treatment is geared to keeping anxiety at manageable levels. Anxiety can be treated successfully using therapy, medication, or both. Lifestyle measures, such as regular exercise and deep-breathing, are also extremely important in controlling anxiety.

For more on causes, symptoms, and treatments of anxiety disorders, see our Diagnosis Dictionary.

Why Anxiety Is On the Rise

[fizkes/Shutterstock+]

Anxiety is now the leading mental health problem around the world, and the incidence of anxiety is still rising, especially among youth. Increasing numbers of children and adolescents are being diagnosed with the disorder.

One often-cited reason for the general rise in anxiety is the burden of uncertainty in almost every domain of modern life, in response to an array of economic and cultural shifts. Uncertainty doesn’t cause anxiety, but it provides breeding grounds for it.

Two important factors contributing to anxiety among the young are parenting practices that overprotect children and the rise of social media. Technology provides new opportunities for connecting people, but it also leads to new experiences of negative social comparison and new pathways for social exclusion.

For more see Children and Anxiety

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How to Recognize the Signs of Anxiety

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Anxiety declares itself not just with endless loops of worry in the mind but with heart-pounding discomfort in the body, from general jumpiness and trembling to ringing in the ears and shortness of breath.

The body symptoms of anxiety can be highly misleading. Not only are they often misinterpreted as signs of a heart attack and impending doom-a cardinal feature of panic attacks-but they often lead to odysseys of medical misdiagnosis. Physical symptoms may be assumed to be the result of physical causes, and in a misdirected search for them, the true source of the problem can continue undiscovered and unaddressed.

For more see Signs of Anxiety

How to Treat Anxiety

[Anamaria Mejia/shutterstock+]

Anxiety disorders can often be addressed successfully with psychotherapy, alone or in combination with medication

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