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Anxiety

Decent Essays

What is anxiety?

Anxiety is generalized as a normal reaction to stress, although when anxiety becomes excessive and isn’t properly treated, it is then considered an anxiety disorder. Anxiety is categorized by emotional, physical and behavioral symptoms that are associated with fear and stress. Anxiety primarily affects the cognitive functions of the body and anxiety can slowly deteriorate the thinking processes and abilities, which limits an individual’s cognitive function. Emotions such as fear, negative thoughts and feelings of inadequacy contribute to the effects of anxiety on an individual’s cognitive functions. These emotions are frequently accompanied by physical symptoms, particularly fatigue, muscle aches, irritability and sweating. …show more content…

Panic Disorder: Individuals develop feelings of fear that occur repeatedly and suddenly. The panic attacks are intense, overwhelming and generally uncontrollable feelings of anxiety and physical symptoms. An Individual having a panic attack may experience shortness of breath, sweating and chest pain.

Social anxiety disorder: Individuals encounter overwhelming worry and self-consciousness regarding social situations. The fears are generally based on being judged by others, or their appearance or behavior that may be embarrassing or ridiculing.

Specific Phobias: Individuals develop fear of a specific object or event, such as animals, environments and certain physical activities.8 They experience highly levels of stress and fear to a situation that is uncommon and may cause the person to avoid these situations. 5

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD):
When an individual has been experiencing anxiety, with ongoing intrusive thoughts and fears, they often indulge themselves to certain behaviours to relieve their anxiety despite acknowledging the thoughts to be inharmonious. 5, …show more content…

This is most evident in individuals suffering from post-traumatic anxiety disorder.
In particularly the Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is related to specific brain dysfunctions. Individuals suffering from OCD may have abnormalities in a specific nerve pathway and a lack of attention. These factors may lead to the development of a Tourette syndrome (a neurological disorder) where individuals have repetitive and involuntary movements.
More specifically, individuals suffering from specific phobias’ have hindered cognitive functions as their dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), insula and the thalamus are far more active than a regular individual’s, this is evident when they encounter their specific phobias. Those with generalised anxiety disorder have weaker connections between the pre-frontal and anterior cortex of the brain, this was evident to be significantly weaker than those without anxiety disorders.28
Long-term effects of

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