Everyone has anxiety. It’s part of the normal human experience. It’s natural to feel anxious when faced with a stressor. In fact, a certain amount of anxiety can be helpful.  Anxiety can protect us from danger.  It can cause us to study harder for a big test or prepare more thoroughly for an important presentation.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is an anxiety disorder that develops after one experiences or witnesses a traumatic event.  Examples of such traumatic events include natural disaster (such as flood, fire, or earthquake); rape; war; terrorist attack; physical, emotional, or sexual abuse; assault, torture, automobile accident, frightening airplane flight, or getting a diagnosis of a life-threatening illness.

Preoccupation with fears of having a serious disease, being obsessed with one’s body, constantly looking for signs of something wrong with one’s health and misinterpreting those signs, are the essential features of Illness Anxiety Disorder. People with this disorder can fear a brain tumor when they have a headache; skin cancer when they see skin

Phobias are not unusual. There are over 200 of them, most with names that are difficult to pronounce. A common phobia is arachnophobia, a fear of spiders. A fear of heights is called acrophobia. Don’t confuse acrophobia with aerophobia, which is a fear of flying, or astraphobia, which is a fear of thunder and lighting.