Anxiety and Panic Attacks

What is anxiety?

Anxiety is a strong feeling of worry and can affect your thoughts, your body and your behaviour. Everyone gets anxious now and then and anxiety is actually your body giving you a message that you are not safe.

This can be helpful when you need to get out of danger or when you need to perform really well at something. In fact, a little bit of anxiety can help you to succeed in a test, sports match or a singing performance. The problem is when our body thinks we are in danger when we are actually ok. This is when anxiety starts to become a problem.

Learning how anxiety works can help you to cope

This video explains what anxiety can feel like and how it can affect you.

Top tips for managing anxiety

1. Talk to someone and share your worries
2. Use relaxation and mindfulness strategies
3. Challenge your anxious thoughts and be positive
4. Face your fears
5. Be kind to yourself
6. Don’t try to be perfect

If you are feeling anxious all the time and it is starting to affect your daily life, talk to someone you trust and ask for help. Health for Teens website has lots of helpful advice and information on how to manage anxiety.

Coping with panic attacks

Anxiety will usually go away, but it can sometimes develop into a panic attack. A panic attack is a very strong, sudden feeling of anxiety that can overwhelm you. Panic attacks can have physical symptoms for example feeling shaky, sick and dizzy. Panic attacks can be scary but can’t cause you any physical harm.