Anxiety: symptoms, causes and what helps

What is anxiety?

Anxiety is the feeling of fear, worry or unease your body produces when it senses a threat, real or imagined. Your heart speeds up, breathing gets shallow, muscles tense and your mind scans for what could go wrong. Before a board exam or a salary conversation, that's normal and even useful: it sharpens you.

It turns into a problem when the alarm goes off without a real threat, stays on after the threat has passed, or makes you avoid ordinary things. The NHS describes generalised anxiety as worry about a wide range of situations, on most days, that you find hard to control. If your worry mostly takes the form of looping thoughts, read overthinking vs anxiety to see how the two overlap.

What are the symptoms of anxiety?

Anxiety shows up in both body and mind. The most common signs are constant worry you can't switch off, restlessness, a racing heart, muscle tension and trouble sleeping. Many people in India first notice it in the body and go to a doctor for chest, stomach or headache complaints before anyone mentions anxiety.

The free anxiety self-check uses the GAD-7, a seven-question scale published by Spitzer and colleagues in 2006 and used by doctors worldwide. It takes two minutes and your answers never leave your phone. It isn't a diagnosis, but a score of 10 or more is a good reason to talk to a professional.

Is it an anxiety attack or a panic attack?

A panic attack is a sudden wave of intense fear that peaks within minutes, with a pounding heart, breathlessness, chest tightness, tingling or a feeling that you might faint or die. "Anxiety attack" isn't a medical term. People usually use it for worry and tension that build more slowly and last longer.

Chest pain and breathlessness can also have physical causes. If it's your first time, or the symptoms feel different from before, get checked by a doctor or call 112. For step-by-step help in the moment, read how to calm down a panic attack.

What are the types of anxiety disorder?

Doctors group anxiety disorders by what the fear is about and how it shows up. The main ones are:

• Generalised anxiety disorder (GAD): persistent worry about many everyday things (health, money, family, work) on most days for six months or more.
• Panic disorder: repeated panic attacks, plus a fear of the next one.
• Social anxiety: intense fear of being judged, embarrassed or watched, in meetings, at weddings, even on video calls.
• Specific phobias: strong fear of one thing, like flying, heights, needles or dogs.
• Health anxiety: constant worry about being seriously ill, often fed by late-night symptom searches.

Only a doctor or psychologist can tell you whether one of these fits. The labels matter less than noticing the pattern and getting the right support.

How common is anxiety in India?

Anxiety is one of the most common mental health conditions in India and worldwide. The WHO's 2017 global estimates put about 38 million people in India, roughly 3% of the population, living with an anxiety disorder. India's National Mental Health Survey 2015–16 found neurotic and stress-related conditions, the group that includes anxiety disorders, in about 3.5% of adults, more often in women.

Behind those numbers are familiar Indian pressures: competitive exams and rank lists, job insecurity, EMIs, long commutes, family expectations about marriage and career, and "log kya kahenge" making it hard to say any of it out loud. Most people never get help. The same survey found that for most mental health conditions, the majority of people who needed care weren't receiving it.

What causes anxiety?

There's rarely one cause. Anxiety usually builds from a mix of temperament, life events and habits that keep the alarm switched on:

• Stress that doesn't let up: a demanding job, money worries, caring for a parent. If work is the main weight, see work stress.
• Short or irregular sleep: tired brains react more strongly to threat, and anxiety in turn makes sleep harder. Sleep anxiety covers that loop.
• Caffeine and energy drinks: the third cup of chai or coffee can produce the same racing heart and jitters as anxiety itself.
• Avoidance: skipping the thing you fear brings relief today, but teaches your brain the thing was dangerous, so the fear grows.
• Family history, health and hormones: thyroid problems, some medicines and big hormonal changes can play a part, which is one reason to see a doctor.

How do I calm anxiety right now?

The fastest way to calm anxiety in the moment is to slow your breathing, especially the out-breath, and then bring your attention back to what's around you. These steps take two to five minutes and work anywhere: at your desk, in a cab, in a bathroom at a family function.

1. Make the exhale longer than the inhale. Breathe in through your nose, take a second small sip of air, then let it out slowly through your mouth. In Balban and colleagues' 2023 study, five minutes a day of this "cyclic sighing" improved mood more than mindfulness meditation. Try the physiological sigh guide.
2. Name it. Say, silently or out loud, "this is anxiety, and it will pass." Lieberman's 2007 brain-imaging study found that putting a feeling into words reduced activity in the amygdala, the brain's alarm centre.
3. Ground yourself. Find 5 things you can see, 4 you can touch, 3 you can hear, 2 you can smell and 1 you can taste. The 5-4-3-2-1 grounding page walks you through it.
4. Let your body move. Walk to the end of the corridor and back, or splash cold water on your face. Movement uses up some of the adrenaline your body just made.

MimiBreathe out slower than you breathe in. Your body reads that as "we're safe now".

What helps with anxiety day to day?

Day to day, anxiety eases most when you stop feeding it: fewer hours lost to worry, more regular sleep and movement, less caffeine, and gentle, steady steps towards things you've been avoiding. None of these is a quick fix, but together they lower how often the alarm goes off.

• Give worry a fixed time. Write worries down when they come, and look at them only in a 15-minute slot each evening. McGowan and Behar's 2013 trial of this "worry postponement" found less worry and anxiety than in the comparison group. Use the worry time method or the worry timer.
• Move most days. A 2023 overview of 97 systematic reviews by Singh and colleagues found that physical activity, including walking and yoga, reduced anxiety symptoms.
• Keep a steady wake time. Regular sleep makes your stress response less jumpy. Start with the sleep guide.
• Cut caffeine after lunch. Notice whether your worst afternoons follow your strongest coffee.
• Take one small step towards what you avoid. Make the phone call, send the email, go to the gathering for 20 minutes. Small, repeated steps teach your brain it can cope.

When should I see a professional for anxiety?

See a doctor, psychiatrist or clinical psychologist if anxiety has lasted for several weeks or months, if you're having panic attacks, if you're avoiding work, college or people, or if you're relying on alcohol to get through. Psychological approaches such as CBT have strong research support for anxiety, and a psychiatrist can discuss whether medicine would help.

If you don't know where to start, Tele-MANAS (14416 or 1-800-891-4416) is the government's free, confidential helpline. It runs 24×7 in many Indian languages and can point you to services nearby. In an emergency, call 112. More options are on the need help now page.

How Mentis fits in

Mentis is a daily wellness app, not a substitute for professional care. It's built for the everyday part: a two-minute check-in with Mimi shows your mood as weather, and over time Mimi points out patterns, like stormy afternoons after short nights. The Overthinking plan turns the techniques above into a few minutes a day, with chapters like "Not now" (worry postponement) and "What if, checked", and activities such as "Box Breathing, For When It Starts" and "In My Hands, Not In My Hands". Prefer Hindi? Read anxiety kaise dur kare.