Anxiety is recognized as a physiological state by experts where individuals have feelings that we associate with fear, worry and related states of mind. Despite being more psychological, anxiety is a state of existence when a sufferer experiences nausea, shortness of breath, headache and even heart palpitations. When a person suffers from this disorder he tends to have high blood pressure and an increased heart rate accompanied by a less functioning digestive system and sweating, trembling. In severe cases, the above may further be accompanied by chills. Suffers who are affected by an attack more of an emotional nature can also feel boundless levels of happiness and sadness.

Types of Anxiety and their causes

If types of anxiety need be enumerated, the mention of four of them may be made- existential anxiety, test anxiety, anxiety in palliative care and stranger anxiety. Existential anxiety is characterized by a state of mind where the sufferer begins to think that some day he will cease to exist. This pattern of thinking is the cause of anxiety in this case. Test anxiety is suffered by students in general, some of whom get pangs of distress thinking they might not be able to pass in an examination. The cause of this may be pressure from family or friends or might even be embarrassment caused by a teacher. Anxiety in palliative care is felt by cancer patients and the cure of this kind of anxiety can actually increase their longevity. Stranger anxiety is a variation of the disorder that individuals feel when interacting with strangers.

Treatment

Now that anxiety is becoming part and parcel of urban existence, popular drugs are being introduced into the market to assist sufferers. The most common class of drugs used to treat anxiety is benzodiazepines. These drugs are also commonly referred to as “tranquilizers” and frequently used benzodiazepines are Xanax, Valium, Ativan and Librium. BuSpar is a popular drug prescribed by doctors to treat chronic anxiety. Less severe cases are given anti- depressants.