Symptoms of Constant Anxiety

Anxiety Disorder is a disease that affects more than 40 million people worldwide. Unlike how most people face anxiety when preparing for a speech, test or getting ready to ask someone out on a date---anxiety can become a disorder when those feelings never go away or appear without being in a fearful situation. While many anxiety disorders are caused from past occurrences such as post-traumatic stress disorders or hidden mental dysfunctions, some symptoms of constant anxiety appear and disappear without warning, for no real reason.

Fear of Dying

• One of the greatest symptoms of constant anxiety is the overwhelming fear of dying. For the average person---everyone thinks of death from time to time. For the person suffering from anxiety or related mental disorders, the thought of dying is a daily occurrence. This person may envision something horrific happening to them as a result from their overwhelming anxiety symptoms. They may think they will stop breathing, have a heart attack, have cancer or only weeks to live.

Losing Control

• Another symptom with many victims of constant anxiety is feeling as if they have lost control. They could also feel as though they are having a nervous breakdown. While symptoms mimic nervous breakdowns or physical exhaustion, they are generally not a true mental breakdown. The reason for this is that most of these symptoms are physical and caused by an over-stimulation of chemicals in the brain that makes the body react to stress and stimuli. Horrific thoughts such as killing animals and people or hurting oneself can be a chilling and terrifying symptom of an anxiety disorder but are rarely acted out upon. Fortunately, these symptoms are short-lived or can be treated with prescription drugs prescribed by a physician.

Insomnia

• A troublesome symptom of constant anxiety is not being able to fall asleep. This is mainly due to the other physical symptoms taking over the body and the fear of dying in ones sleep. Some can't sleep because they are overly worried about how the anxiety disorder is affecting their lives both at home and at work.

Loss of Appetite

• It isn't unusual to see someone with an extreme case of constant anxiety suddenly lose weight. While some people when they are stressed tend to eat more and gain weight---those with constant anxiety often are too ill to eat. This is mainly due to the physical symptoms taking over the body and causing havoc on the psyche. There is a mode called the "fight or flight" reaction or response. This mode is where the body begins to pump adrenaline and increase blood flow to the main organs of the body for survival. Many times in people with extreme anxiety disorder---this reaction goes haywire. While the body is in no immediate danger---it can mimic symptoms that it is.

Physical Symptoms

• Some of the physical symptoms involved with constant anxiety involve those that feel like real-life threatening diseases or conditions. Some of these include heart palpitations (racing heart) irregular heartbeat (skipped beats) chest tightness, tingling in arms, jelly legs (loss of stability) and light-headedness. While all of these symptoms can be signs of an underlying illness, they generally are just natural symptoms of the body's fight or flight mechanism running amok. Having a complete physical done at the first onset of any of the above symptoms will be the only way to determine if it is anxiety or from an underlying medical cause.