Teens and Anxiety

Everyone feels anxious from time to time. Mild to moderate anxiety can help you focus your attention, energy and motivation. Physical symptoms of anxiety include:

• Trembling, twitching, or shaking
  
• Feeling of fullness in the throat or chest
  
• Breathlessness
  
• Lightheadedness
  
• Sweating or cold, clammy hands
  
• Muscle tension, aches, or soreness
  
• Fatigue
  
• Sleep problems

You may have felt this way before a final exam or a sports competition. Once the exam was over, the symptoms went away. However, if your anxiety is chronic -- it stays with you most of the time-- that may be a sign of a bigger problem.

• Types of Anxiety

Types of Anxiety

• General anxiety: feeling stressed and worrying about many everyday events and activities, that may be small and not important
  
• Social Anxiety: an extreme fear of being judged or embarrassed in public. Symptoms might be butterflies in your stomach, sweaty palms, heart may pound, sweating, and even difficulty breathing.
  
• Panic Attacks: sudden feeling of extreme anxiety or intense fear without a clear cause. Symptoms include rapid breathing, racing heart, dizziness, and/or tightness in your chest.
  
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD): is a disorder characterized by repeated unwanted thoughts and repeated tasks that help get rid of the thoughts.
  
• Post-traumatic stress disorder: symptoms that usually occur after something awful happens in your life including lack of lseep, nightmares, repeating thoughts and images, feeling anxious, losing interest in things, and having trouble concentrating.
  
• Phobias: extreme and irrational fears that interfere with daily life.

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