Long-term extreme anxiety, often called Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), is persistent, excessive, and hard-to-control worry about everyday things (like work, health, or finances) that lasts over six months and significantly interferes with daily life, causing symptoms like restlessness, fatigue, irritability, muscle tension, and sleep problems, making normal functioning difficult. It's more intense than normal stress and can be debilitating, sometimes leading to panic attacks or social withdrawal.
Chronic anxiety, on the other hand, is more like a persistent drizzle, a low-grade worry that hangs over us for weeks, months, or even years. It is not tied to specific events but seems to permeate every aspect of life, manifesting as generalized worry, excessive fear, and intrusive thoughts.
The two main treatments for anxiety disorders are psychotherapy and medications. You may benefit most from a combination of the two. It may take some trial and error to discover which treatments work best for you.
'Extreme anxiety' is a phrase that people use to describe feelings of worry, panic, or fear that are intense or out of proportion to an actual threat. It's important to understand that this term is not a clinical term or mental illness diagnosis. How people experience anxiety can differ from one person to the next.
Stage 4: Severe/ Debilitating Anxiety Disorders
Some may experience more severe symptoms chest pain, long-term fatigue, irritability and hypervigilance. Professional and often multi-faceted treatment is essential for individuals at this stage to regain control over their lives.
Anxiety. In the end stage of life, your loved one may show signs of anxiety and restlessness. This may result from an unresolved problem within the individual or with another person. Anxiety may also arise from fear of death, of the unknown, or of leaving loved ones behind.
Anxiety itself can cause symptoms like headaches or a racing heartbeat, and you may mistake these for signs of illness.
It can get worse over time and can get in the way of everyday activities. Anxiety disorders can sometimes lead to serious complications, such as depression, alcoholism or drug abuse. It's a condition that may benefit from specific treatments.
A big event or a buildup of smaller stressful life situations may trigger excessive anxiety — for example, a death in the family, work stress or ongoing worry about finances. Personality. People with certain personality types are more prone to anxiety disorders than others are.
Symptoms of anxiety
Traditional treatments like therapy and antidepressants have been the go-to options for decades, but they don't work for everyone. Enter ketamine therapy, particularly the FDA-approved nasal spray Spravato (esketamine), which is changing the landscape of anxiety treatment in 2025.
Identify triggers. Learn what situations or actions cause you stress or increase your anxiety. Practice the strategies you developed with your mental health professional so you're ready to deal with anxious feelings in these situations. Keep physically active.
Benzodiazepines are a group of medications that can help reduce anxiety and make it easier to sleep. They are also used as a muscle relaxant, to induce sedation for surgery and other medical procedures, and in the treatment of seizures and alcohol withdrawal.
The Long-Term Effects on Brain Health
Prolonged stress can shrink the hippocampus, affecting your ability to process and recall information. Additionally, chronic anxiety can lead to increased levels of cortisol, the body's stress hormone, which can damage brain cells over time.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends talking with a healthcare professional if worry persists and interferes with daily activities for 6 months or longer. Seeking treatment, such as therapy or medication, may help reduce the duration and severity of anxiety symptoms.
To be diagnosed with GAD, a person must find it difficult to control worry on most days for at least 6 months. They must also have at least three of these symptoms: feeling restless or “on edge,” fatigue, trouble concentrating, irritability, muscle tension, or problems with sleep.
Heart palpitations and rapid breathing patterns are commonly experienced during a bout of anxiety. The persistent rush of stress response hormones at persistent, high levels of anxiety may cause high blood pressure and coronary problems such as heart disease or heart attack.
Similar to people, sensitive, anxious, or reactive dogs can have periods when everything seems to go wrong. Trigger stacking refers to a phenomenon in which a dog experiences multiple stressful or scary situations within a short timespan.
The Social Security Administration recognizes severe anxiety and depression as qualifying conditions for disability under its official listings of mental health conditions.
Left untreated, anxiety disorders can lead to serious complications, including: Difficulty with social situations and decreased quality of life. Substance use disorders, including alcohol use disorder. Major depressive disorder.
Anxiety disorders were associated with a significantly increased mortality risk, and the co-occurrence of these disorders resulted in an additionally increased death risk.
Here are some signs that the anxiety you're feeling is clinical (and you may want to seek help from a mental health professional): Worry is interfering with your daily life. It's hurting your ability to function at work, school, socially, or at home.
Some studies suggest that experiencing anxiety could increase the risk of developing certain long-term physical health problems, including diabetes, stomach ulcers and heart problems.
When we are more susceptible to stress, depression, or anxiety, our brains may be playing tricks on us. A cycle of continuing to look for what is wrong makes it easier to find what is wrong out there. It's called a confirmation bias.
Conditions That Look Like Anxiety