Symptoms vary from person to person, and usually include more than one of these signs:

• feeling afraid of worry, panic, or discomfort
• heart palpitations
• sweating (sweaty hands, hot flashes, etc.)
• tremors
• shortness of breath, dry mouth
• feeling of suffocation
• chest pain
• nausea
• dizziness or lightheadedness
• tingling or numbness in the limbs
• sleeping troubles
• various other physical symptoms

The DSM-5 recommends asking the following questions to screen for anxiety disorders: During the past two weeks, how much did you feel embarrassed by these sensations?

    â— ‹Feeling nervous, anxious, scared, worried

    â— ‹Feeling panicked or scared

    â— ‹The desire to avoid situations that make you anxious

Le panic disorder (or panic attacks) is characterized by unpredictable and recurring panic attacks, in which the person has difficulty breathing, experiences intense, uncontrollable fear, and other symptoms such as nausea or palpitations.

THEgeneralized anxiety corresponds, as the term suggests, to a general and constant feeling of anxiety that is difficult to control.

La social phobia, as for it, results in an excessive fear vis-a-vis various social situations, which could be embarrassing, humiliating, or which are associated with a notion of performance.

The specific phobias can be associated with a wide variety of situations or objects / animals. They cause a totally unreasonable fear, for example of spiders, elevators, public transport …

The obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) are a manifestation of anxiety and they result in obsessive, overwhelming ideas, and compulsive behaviors (for example an obsession with cleanliness, the need to constantly check if this or that thing is in its place, etc … ).

Le trouble d’accumulation compulsive is now recognized as part of anxiety disorders: it results in the irrepressible need to accumulate objects (brochures, objects found in the street, etc.).

Finally, post-traumatic stress disorder is a deep discomfort, a fear that arises following a traumatic event, sometimes a few months later.

In general, specific phobias appear early, in childhood or adolescence, while generalized anxiety, panic disorders or post-traumatic stress disorder appear on average later, between the ages of 24 and 50.⁴.