Anxiety
Anxiety is a normal and often healthy emotion, but when a person regularly feels disproportionate levels of anxiety, it might become a medical disorder. Symptoms include restlessness, feeling wound-up or on edge, a sense of dread, and difficulty concentrating on anything but persistent worry. Anxiety is often accompanied by physical symptoms such as nausea, fast heartbeat, shallow breathing, pins and needles sensations, dizziness, or panic attacks.
It affects about 31% of adults in the U.S. at some point in their lives.
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is characterized by persistent and excessive worry about various different things. People with GAD may anticipate disaster and may be overly concerned about money, health, family, work, or other issues.
- Panic Disorder (PD) involves repeated episodes of sudden feelings of intense anxiety and fear or terror that reach a peak within minutes (panic attacks).
- Social Anxiety Disorder involves high levels of anxiety, fear, and avoidance of social situations due to feelings of embarrassment, self-consciousness, and concern about being judged or viewed negatively by others.
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Anxiety Relief in Moments of Need
For those battling anxiety, our selection of exercises offers prompt grounding and solace. With videos lasting 5 to 15 minutes, these brief Hope Helping interventions provide instant calm during peak distress, bridging the gap until you reach a Hope Helper.
You Are Not Alone: Anxiety By the Numbers
- The annual prevalence of anxiety among U.S. adults is 19.1% (over 40 million people)
- Approximately 7% of children aged 3-17 experience issues with anxiety each year
- Depression and anxiety disorders cost the global economy $1 trillion in lost productivity each year
- GAD affects 6.8 million adults or 3.1% of the U.S. population, yet only 43.2% are receiving treatment.
- PD affects 6 million adults or 2.7% of the U.S. population.