Anxiety levels are typically classified by level of distress and impairment into four categories: mild anxiety, moderate anxiety, severe anxiety, and panic anxiety.
Everybody has anxiety at some point in their lives, and there’s a certain amount of anxiety that’s normal.
However, anxiety disorders are defined as excessive anxiety and hyper which disrupt normal functioning. Anxiety is among the most common mental disorder.
Here are different levels of anxiety:
Mild Anxiety:
People with mild anxiety can affect emotional, social, and work performance. Mild anxiety tends to be when you are irritating symptoms that don’t seem to go away, but that otherwise doesn’t control you. For example:
- You have constant worries, but you can generally ignore them.
- Sometimes you may feel nervous, nauseated, shaky, or sweat, but you aren’t debilitated by these symptoms.
- In some conditions, you don’t have panic attacks or become overwhelmed by your anxiety to the point where you start to fear the anxiety itself.
Moderate Anxiety:
People with slight ranges of anxiety have extra common or continual symptoms than people with moderate anxiety. However, nonetheless have higher everyday functioning than a person with severe tension.
Symptoms:
- Restlessness
- Having a sense of impending danger
- Having an increased heart rate.
- Breathing rapidly
- Trembling.
- Feeling weak or tired.
- Trouble concentrating
Severe Anxiety:
Severe anxiety is intensely debilitating, and symptoms of severe anxiety meet key diagnostic criteria for clinically-significant anxiety disorder. People with severe anxiety typically score higher on scales of distress and lower on functioning. Severe anxiety symptoms also frequently co-occur with major depression, which can contribute to greater disability. Symptoms of severe anxiety are frequent and persistent and may include increased heart rate, feelings of panic, and social withdrawal.
Panic Level Anxiety:
Panic level anxiety, or panic disorder, is characterized by frequent, recurring, and unexpected panic attacks. A panic attack can include symptoms such as:
- Rapid onset of extreme fear
- Heart palpitations
- Rapid breathing
- Nausea or dizziness
It varies from person to person, panic attacks usually last around 20 to 30 minutes, sometimes symptoms peaking after about 10 minutes. Generally, after 20 to 30 minutes, the majority of symptoms calm. It is important to point out that panic attacks are common indicators of an anxiety disorder.
Managing Anxiety:
There are many different ways to manage anxiety, depending on the severity. For example, mild to moderate anxiety may be manageable through exercise, meditation, or therapy. For more severe cases of anxiety, therapy, medication or a combination of treatment strategies may be most beneficial.
The use of coping and treatment strategies like teletherapy can be life-changing for people living with anxiety and can allow them to gain control of their lives.