Anxiety warns us and enables us to get ready for the 'fight or flight' response. However, heightened anxiety is emotionally painful. It disrupts a person's daily functioning. Frequently, people with anxiety experience tightness in their chest, a racing or pounding heart, and a pit in their stomach. Severe anxiety, which can be described as an episode of terror, is referred to as a panic attack.
Panic attacks can be extremely frightening.
People with obsessive-compulsive disorder have either obsessions, or compulsions, or both. People with obsessions are bothered by thoughts or images that continue to repeat themselves and are almost impossible to ignore. These thoughts, which are annoying, distracting, and inappropriate, tend to cause the person to have moderate to severe anxiety and other emotional discomfort. People who suffer from OCD worry excessively and often attempt to avoid or to get rid of the bothersome thoughts by trying to replace them with more pleasant thoughts or actions. Compulsions are behaviors.