Perhaps you have trouble sleeping or have unexplained physical symptoms like a pounding heart, stomach pains, or difficulty breathing. Any of these may be a sign that you have an anxiety disorder.
Appropriate anxiety is a normal adaptation to truly stressful situations.
If a tornado is heading towards your home, anxiety helps you to take appropriate action quickly. In situations like this anxiety is closely related to fear. A threatening situation raises our heart rate, our breathing rate, and our awareness enabling us to act quickly. Those with anxiety disorders seem to have unrealistic fears, or they worry excessively or inappropriately. When anxiety starts to truly interfere with their relationships, their job, or school performance, or even their inner peace it begins to approach the level of an anxiety disorder.