There are three fairly common types of anxiety disorders: generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and social anxiety disorder. Each one of them is a little bit different. The most common, or generalized anxiety disorder, is normally characterized by excessive, constant worrying. That worrying can be about a variety of different topics, and can be so devastating for a patient that sometimes they will have problems with their sleep, their eating schedules, and even sometimes manifest with physical symptoms such as headaches, abdominal pain, and heart racing symptoms as well.
Panic disorder is a little bit different. Panic disorder is a problem with recurrent panic attacks and concern of having recurrent panic attacks in the future. A panic attack normally is a short period of time, normally 15 to 20 minutes or so, of severe anxiety, sometimes chest pain, sometimes nausea, sometimes a feeling like you are about to die almost. These can be very devastating for patients.
Last is social anxiety disorder. Social anxiety disorder normally relates to anxiety that happens in regard to having a social experience. That may be sitting down and having a conversation with somebody, being in a large group, public speaking. It becomes a disorder, rather than just being nervous about a presentation, when it becomes so pervasive that it's starting to be a problem in your ability to cope or to be in that setting, or you're actively avoiding those settings.
