Depression and anxiety
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What is anxiety?

We all feel anxious from time to time—it might be about exam results, a job interview or even who will win the final of a match. This anxiety is a normal part of life and in fact is necessary to help us avoid danger or perform at our best.

For some people however, the feelings of anxiety can be much more extreme and become what’s known as an anxiety disorder. This is more than feeling stressed — it’s a serious condition that makes day-to-day life more difficult.

What are anxiety disorders and who experiences them?

Anxiety is an uncomfortable feeling of fear or imminent disaster and is a normal emotional response to danger. The normal, healthy type of anxiety is usually brought on by some task in your life, such as a test or job interview. It only lasts a day or so, and doesn’t affect your health or day-to-day life. In many ways, a certain amount of anxiety is good for us, as it gets us hyped up to perform at our best.

But if you’ve got an anxiety disorder, the anxiety overwhelms you and gets in the way of other parts of your life — like how you do at school or work, and how you get on with other people. It’ll usually be far more intense than normal anxiety and go on for weeks, months or even longer.

Anxiety can be part your genetic and biochemical make up, as well as part of your personality.

There are many things that can trigger anxiety, such as your environment, stressful situations like school exams and/or problems within the family or a trauma.

Some causes of an anxiety disorder might be:

  • genetics (a history of anxiety in your family)
  • disturbance of brain activity
  • a stressful event like:
  • a family break-up
  • abuse
  • ongoing bullying at school
  • a death
  • a relationship break up
  • family conflict.

Anxiety is not the same as depression, although the two conditions share many causes and some symptoms.

Are anxiety disorders common?

In Australia, anxiety disorders are common — One in 25 teenagers (13–17 year olds) experience anxiety in any 12-month period. For those between 18 and 25 years, the numbers are even higher, at one in 10[1].