Welcome to AnxietyStress.org. This website discusses the many aspects of anxiety and stress and their related illnesses. It also discusses some of the causes and symptoms, the dangers, how it can lead to panic attacks, how long-term stress and anxiety can temporarily or permanently damage your health, and some really practical tips for managing and resolving stress.

Americans of all ages are bothered with chronic tension, anxiety, and stress-related diseases and illnesses. Stress is no respecter of persons. If you are human, then it’s inevitable that you will in some point in your life suffer through anxiety or stress. Indeed, anxiety stress is something that each one of us is certain to be exposed to, in one form or another, at some time in our lives.

Needless to say, stress has become a major problem in our society today. According to a recent survey conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates, about two thirds of Americans report that they feel “stressed-out” at least once a week. 26% of adults felt an impending nervous breakdown, 23% of teens were being diagnosed with serious clinical depression (3 million teenagers!). And the use of antidepressants (SSRI’s) has risen 56% over recent years. Researchers have found that psychological factors such as stress and depression may have a greater impact on health-care costs than physical factors such as obesity, smoking, and high blood pressure.

Stress is an ordinary emotional and physical reaction that occurs when you perceive that something will arise that you may not be able to handle, or that someone or something is taking away your control. Anxiety is a sense of uneasiness and fear commonly marked by physical symptoms, such as sweating, tension, and increased heart rate. It is your reaction to your external elements as well as your inner thoughts and feelings.

Symptoms such as irritability, fatigue, depression, or even lack of enthusiasm are stress signals that should be paid close attention to. This kind of anxiety can be oppressive and truly incapacitating. It can cripple you to the extent that you are unable to function normally in otherwise quite ordinary circumstances. Too much anxiety and stress can lead to other illnesses that have the potential to harm you and can also affect your every day activities and routines, as well as your relationships with family and friends.

Stress essentially is your body’s normal response to dangers, the “fight or flight” mechanism — the body’s preparedness to do battle or flee from danger. This reaction involves a complicated biochemical/hormonal process.

The fact is, a certain degree of anxiety may be beneficial. Stress hormones are released in the brain when you face crisis, which is really the brain’s way of dealing with that. That’s a good thing, because you’re more alert, your memory is working, your muscles get ready to run, your blood pressure goes up. Occasional and brief periods of minor and temporary anxiety can give you a push, enabling you to perform to a greater degree of excellence than you ever could without it.

But chronic and habitual anxiety is entirely different and can have devastating consequences.

The problems occur when it’s prolonged, when it’s excessive, when it turns into anxiety and depression, which in turn can lead to panic attacks. You have a release of two stress hormones, noradrenaline, a short-acting hormone, and cortisol, which is a slower acting stress hormone. So after the initial spike in blood pressure, when it remains chronic, you can develop inflammatory conditions, such as high blood pressure. It can cause heart attack or other heart problems as well as stroke. And it’s implicated in not only chronic diseases, but also depression and even dementia.

Medline Plus has more information on stress and anxiety, its considerations, causes, home care, when to contact a medical professional, and what to expect at your office visit.

Informaworld.com is the official journal of the Stress and Anxiety Research Society. They publish five issues a year on subjects including anxiety in children and adolescents, stress and emotion in the workplace, stress in adults, stress in children and adolescent, psychiatry and clinical psychology – adult, and others.

The University of Minnesota Duluth Health Services provides information on anxiety/stress, and related disorders, medical, counseling, and education, as well as helpful links to other resources.