Recognizing Anxiety Symptoms

Most of us have been interrupted watching TV by a commercial warning of am impending heart attack or stroke. Makers of heart and other medications want the public to know of their products and be familiar with the situations in which they are used. However, you rarely see a commercial describing a person suffering from an anxiety attack.

The symptoms of anxiety are much less well known than those of heart disease or diabetes, and many people suffer in silence because they don't know they have a treatable disorder and can go on to live a very typical life. It can confusing to suffer from something you can't identify and assume no one else is suffering from.

In our society we experience many anxiety producing situations. Whether it's the fear that we're lost in an unfamiliar city or are going to be late for a job interview or when the phone rings in the middle of the night, we all face anxiety at one point or another in our lives. Suffering from anxiety symptoms is very common, although many sufferers aren't aware that they are not alone. Some people however may have these symptoms for what seems like no reason at all, and they may confuse these with the symptoms of having a heart attack or some other medical condition.  Especially those who suffer from panic attacks often confuse the two.

Anxiety symptoms are of course different for everyone, and sometimes it's easy to understand that you're just experiencing anxiety – right before a speech to colleagues, when you're about to get married, when you open the front door and see two police officers standing there; these circumstances can easily make anyone tense and nervous!  But for most, anxiety symptoms may include

• shortness of breath
• heart palpitations
• nausea
• chest pain
• difficulty breathing
• tingling or numbness in the fingers, face, or toes, stomach aches, and headaches. 

You can see how these may easily be confused with a heart attack or asthma or some other condition.

If you experience these anxiety symptoms on a regular basis, and especially if they seem to occur for no reason, you would do well to speak to your doctor about possible anxiety treatments. For one thing, you want to rule out the possibility of it being a heart attack or something as serious. For another, he or she can prescribe medications or therapies that can help you deal with the anxiety symptoms while also working with you to find out why you're tense and anxious in the first place.You may have some chemical imbalances in the brain or may need to learn some positive ways of thinking about a situation so as to not be so tense and anxious during certain situations.