Stress and anxiety are a normal part of every adult's life. You might get anxious when you receive your mortgage bill in the mail, when you get your yearly review at work or when your teenage daughter goes on her first date. It's normal to get anxious when you feel threatened or in danger, but anxiety can become incapacitating for some adults. When someone is significantly impacted at work and has trouble maintaining healthy relationships, he might be suffering from an anxiety disorder.
Worry and Fear
Someone suffering from an anxiety disorder worries much more than the average person. She worries constantly about things that aren't threatening or dangerous. For instance, someone with an anxiety disorder might worry about her safety every time she leaves the house, even if it's just to get the mail. She might worry constantly about her children while they're at school and fear that something bad is going to happen every day. This worrying will impact her ability to work, get things accomplished at home, take care of her kids and have a healthy relationship with her husband.
Physical Symptoms
Adults who suffer from anxiety disorders usually experience a multitude of physical symptoms, including sweaty palms, a racing heart, nausea or vomiting, frequent urination, trouble breathing, headaches and muscle tension. These physical symptoms and the emotional symptoms of anxiety disorders are extremely taxing, which usually results in the person feeling fatigued regularly. Worrying on a regular basis causes people to be exhausted.
Trouble Concentrating
Because of the amount of time spent worrying and in fear and the physical symptoms of anxiety, it's difficult for people with an anxiety disorder to concentrate. When they're working, their anxious thoughts will interrupt their thinking, their nausea will have them running to the bathroom and their fear of something bad happening will having them checking up on things constantly. Because they have trouble concentrating, people with anxiety disorders may not be able to complete projects on time, may get demoted or may get fired. The financial strain that's placed on someone who loses his job or is at risk of losing his job increases the symptoms of anxiety.
Obsession
One anxiety disorder in particular, obsessive-compulsive disorder, has two unique symptoms: obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors. Someone with this disorder has constant thoughts about something in particular, such as germs, which lead the person to behave in peculiar ways, such as washing his hands more than 50 times in one day.
Nightmares and Flashbacks
Someone suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) will have nightmares more often than a normal person. She might also have flashbacks in which the person thinks she's back in the moment of the trauma. For instance, a woman who suffers from PTSD because of being raped might have a flashback when having sexual intercourse with her husband. She might see the attacker's face and smell his cologne.
