Are You Just Feeling Anxious, or Do You Have an Anxiety Disorder?

Are you unsure whether your anxiety is normal or if it has escalated to unhealthy levels? Knowing the difference between healthy anxiety and a clinical anxiety disorder can help you sort out which coping strategies are most likely to bring relief and whether you might need professional help.

Although anxiety is often an unpleasant feeling, it’s actually a healthy response to certain triggers.

“There are many situations that come up in everyday life when it is appropriate and reasonable to react with some anxiety,” says Edmund Bourne, PhD, a former director of the Anxiety Treatment Center in San Jose and Santa Rosa, California, and the author of The Anxiety & Phobia Workbook.

That’s because anxiety — as in day-to-day concern about say, crossing a busy street or about a persistent toothache — helps keep us safe. It’s also a natural response to stressors. “If you didn’t feel anxiety in response to everyday challenges involving personal loss or failure, something would be wrong,” says Dr. Bourne.

“Normal” anxiety is proportionally related to a specific situation or problem and lasts only as long as the situation or problem does, says Sarah Gundle, PsyD, a clinical psychologist in private practice in New York City. For example, it’s completely normal to feel anxious about speaking in front of a large group of people or meeting an important deadline at work.

What Does Anxiety Feel Like?

While people may experience anxiety in different ways, in many cases it affects a person's entire being — psychologically, physically, and behaviorally — and it crosses over into something truly distressing, says Bourne.

Psychologically, anxiety involves subjective feelings of uneasiness or apprehension, he says. Physically, anxiety might include bodily sensations such as rapid heartbeat, muscle tension, dry mouth, or sweating. And behaviorally, it could lead a person to avoid ordinary situations, stop communicating about feelings, or fail to make decisions.

In its most extreme forms, anxiety can cause you to feel detached from yourself (known as depersonalization), disconnected from your surroundings (derealization), like you might die, or like you’re thinking irrationally, Bourne adds.

“The other key difference is that the anxiety lasts for a long time, even when the situation or problem has been resolved,” Dr. Gundle explains.

For someone with an anxiety disorder, the worrying may feel impossible to control or manage and may lead the person to avoid other people, situations, or things that they believe will trigger anxiety symptoms, Gundle says.

For instance, a person may have an anxiety disorder if they experience significant distress or fear about an unrealistic scenario that likely will never happen, Gundle explains. Or a person who has a fear of heights and feels anxious driving over bridges may have an anxiety disorder if they are no longer able to cross bridges at all.

Anxiety among people with a disorder can come up unexpectedly and seemingly without reason. “People with an anxiety disorder feel worry and fear constantly. The feelings of distress can be crippling,” Gundle says.

• Agoraphobia, or a fear of situations that would be difficult or embarrassing to escape from if a person had a panic attack
• Generalized anxiety disorder, ongoing and excessive worry about many things that interferes with daily life
• Panic disorder, a condition involving repeated panic attacks that lead to excessive fear or avoidance
• Separation anxiety disorder, a condition in which someone is overly fearful of being separated from another person to whom they feel attached
• Specific phobias: excessive fears of objects, activities, or situations that are typically not harmful
• Social anxiety disorder, a condition in which someone has excessive fears of embarrassment, humiliation, or rejection in social situations

How can you tell if your anxiety has surpassed typical levels and crossed into anxiety disorder territory? You may have a disorder if your anxiety is intense, long lasting, and leads to phobias or severe fear that disrupts your life, says Bourne.

• Feeling restless, on edge, or wound-up
• Becoming fatigued very easily
• Difficulty concentrating
• Irritability
• Difficulty managing feelings of worry
• Muscle tension
• Headaches, stomachaches, or other pains that happen without another explanation
• Sleep problems, such as trouble falling or staying asleep

Seek professional help if you feel that your anxiety is interfering with your relationships, work, or school life, or if it is causing you significant distress, Bourne says.

That said, you don’t have to have a disorder to seek professional help for anxiety. If you’d like to be able to better manage everyday anxieties, a mental health professional could be very helpful.

• Chronic pain
• Irritable bowel syndrome
• Diabetes
• Drug or alcohol misuse or withdrawal
• Heart disease
• Respiratory disorders, such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
• Thyroid problems, like hyperthyroidism

Whether your anxiety is situational or stems from a disorder, a few healthy coping strategies may help restore your sense of calm, says Bourne.

Another common technique for reducing anxiety is to identify and replace fearful self-talk, says Bourne.

First, identify any fearful thoughts going through your head, says Bourne. Many of these thoughts are “What if?” statements, with examples including, “What if I stutter?” or “What if they see me sweating?”

Try replacing the fearful self-talk with calming and constructive statements, such as, “I’ve handled this before and can handle it again,” or “I can be anxious and still deal with this situation,” Bourne suggests.

• Identify your personal triggers; journaling can help.
• Limit or avoid stimulants like caffeine that are known to worsen anxiety.
• Eat a nutritious diet.
• Exercise regularly.
• Get enough sleep.
• Find ways to distract yourself from worrying, such as listening to music, podcasts, or audiobooks.
• Limit alcohol consumption, which can trigger anxiety or panic attacks.
• Volunteer or become more active in your community to take a break from personal everyday stress.