What Causes Anxiety?

Anxiety is a complex condition, often misunderstood as someone not being able to cope or worrying too much.

On the face of it we have all experienced times of anxiousness and stress and will have experienced the racing heart, sweating and ‘wired’ feeling associated with it.

Feeling anxious and stressed are very normal sets of emotions when faced with challenging times and the anxiety mechanism serves to prepare our bodies for the challenge ahead.

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Anxiety Disorders

For millions of people in the UK, anxiety is not something that comes and goes – people can live in a near permanent state of heightened anxiety.

Even when there are no obvious external factors, sufferers can experience all the physical and emotional anxiety symptoms. To many people, the fears and worries of those with anxiety may seem irrational; we often hear of people being told to ‘stop worrying’, ‘think positively or ‘stop over thinking things’.

Whilst managing negative thought patterns can be very important to helping alleviate anxiety symptoms, anxiety is a very real reaction to chemical fluctuations within the body and ‘snapping out of it’ is simply not always possible.

But why do some people suffer with anxiety and some don’t?

Understanding why some people develop anxiety disorders is complicated.

It is thought that some people are genetically predisposed to the condition; others develop ‘learnt behaviour’ if a primary care giver was very anxious and for some it is a chemical imbalance that causes their state of heightened anxiety. Hormone fluctuations and other illnesses can also play a part, which is why seeking help from a medically trained professional can be so important to getting the right treatment for you.

Types of Anxiety

Within the family of anxiety disorders come several conditions including:

• Generalised anxiety disorder
• OCD
• Panic disorders
• Phobias
• Performance anxiety
• Social anxiety
• Post traumatic stress disorder

Percentage of anxiety disorders, broken into category.
Source: mentalhealth.org.uk

Often anxiety disorders start early in life, between the ages of 10 and 25. Women are twice as likely as men to suffer with anxiety conditions. Anxiety conditions are commonly accompanied with another mental health condition such as substance dependency or depression - in fact depression and anxiety is the most common mental health disorder in the UK.