
Anxiety disorders and burnout
Anxiety is a normal emotion. It is your brain’s way of reacting to stress and alerting you of potential danger ahead.
Everyone feels anxious now and then. For example, you may worry about your workload, before taking a test, or before making an important decision.
Occasional anxiety is perfectly okay, but anxiety disorders are cause for concern. Anxiety disorders are a group of mental disorders that cause constant and overwhelming fear and anxiety. The excessive anxiety can make you avoid school, work, family gatherings, and other social situations that may trigger or worsen your symptoms.
Luckily, with treatment, many people with anxiety disorders can manage their feelings effectively, and lead healthy and fulfilling lives.
Types of Anxiety Disorders
There are several types of anxiety disorders:
- Generalized anxiety disorder: Feeling unrealistic and excessive worry and tension for no reason.
- Panic disorder: Feeling intense and sudden fear that may cause a panic attack.
- Social anxiety disorder: This disorder causes overwhelming worry and self-consciousness about interacting with people.
- Specific phobias: Intense fear of a specific situation or object, such as heights or flying.
- Agoraphobia: An intense fear of being in a place where it seems hard to escape or get help if an emergency occurs.
- Separation anxiety: During separation anxiety, you feel very anxious or fearful when a person you are close to with leaves your sight.
- Selective mutism: A type of social anxiety where young children who talk normally with their family don’t speak in public places, such as school.
- Medication-induced anxiety disorder: The use of certain medications or drugs, or withdrawal from certain drugs, can trigger symptoms of anxiety disorder.
Burnout
Burnout is a state of mental, emotional, and physical and mental exhaustion caused by prolonged and excessive stress. Burnout occurs when you feel emotionally drained, overwhelmed, and unable to meet constant demands. As the stress continues, you start to lose the motivation and interest that led you to take on a certain role in the first place.
Burnout decreases productivity and drains your energy, leaving you feeling increasingly helpless, hopeless, cynical, and resentful.
The effects of burnout can hinder every area of life—including your home, work, and social life. Burnout can also cause long-term changes to your body that make you vulnerable to certain illnesses. Since it has many negative consequences, it is important to deal with burnout right away.