When To Seek Help For Anxiety Disorder

Anxiety is a natural part of life—it can be normal to feel nervous before a big meeting or a life change. But when those feelings become overwhelming, constant, or start interfering with your daily life, it may be time to seek professional help.

The Drake Institute understands the complexity of treating anxiety disorders, and how every patient has their own unique history or circumstances. For over 40 years, we have provided a highly-effective, non-invasive, drug-free treatment for anxiety, panic attacks, PTSD, insomnia, and other related disorders.

In this article, we explore how to recognize when anxiety moves beyond normal stress and becomes a disorder. We also describe how to treat anxiety without the use of drugs.

When Anxiety Moves Beyond Normal Stress

It’s normal to feel anxious occasionally. However, according to experts at the Mayo Clinic, persistent worry, fear, or nervousness that doesn’t go away—even when there’s no obvious reason—can indicate an anxiety disorder. You don’t have to wait until anxiety becomes unbearable to get support.

Signs You Should Seek Professional Help

• Your anxiety interferes with daily activities or responsibilities
• You have panic attacks or episodes of intense fear
• You feel anxious more days than not, for six months or longer
• Your anxiety feels out of proportion to the situation
• You avoid situations, people, places, or responsibilities out of fear
• You can’t “shut off” your thoughts or relax
• Your symptoms feel like they are getting worse, not better
• You’re using substances to cope with your emotions
• Family or friends express concern about your mood or behavior

How to Recognize When Anxiety Is Affecting Your Daily Life

• You have difficulty concentrating or making decisions
• You have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep
• You experience irritability, restlessness, or feel constantly on edge
• You are withdrawing from social situations or responsibilities

Why Early Intervention Is Important

When left untreated, anxiety can take a serious toll on your well-being. In addition to the experiences listed above, patients with untreated anxiety may face increased risk of substance misuse (alcohol, drugs, food) or suffer from isolation, loneliness, and loss of social connection.

Without intervention, anxiety can become more intense and overwhelming. Over time, it may lead to physical health issues, impact your relationships, or develop into panic disorder or depression. Early support can help prevent these complications.

Chronic anxiety can dysregulate your brain, making it harder to calm down or feel safe. But the brain is flexible, and interventions like neurofeedback can help restore balance.

What Does Anxiety Disorder Feel Like?

Anxiety is more than just a mental experience—it impacts your body, including your immune system and your heart, as well as your emotions, and behavior. People experience anxiety differently, and the severity of the experiences can vary, but there are some common symptoms of anxiety.

Emotional symptoms of anxiety may include:

• Persistent worry, even with no clear reason
• Feeling overwhelmed or helpless
• Racing thoughts or chronic fears
• Low self-confidence or fear of judgment

Physical symptoms of anxiety may include:

• Tightness in the chest or shortness of breath
• Increased heart rate or palpitations
• Increased muscle tension
• Headaches or neck pain
• Digestive symptoms
• Trouble sleeping or constant fatigue

Behavioral signs of anxiety may include:

• Avoiding situations that trigger anxiety
• Procrastinating or missing deadlines
• Irritability or emotionally overreacting

Anxiety In Adults vs. Teens:

Adults may experience anxiety as difficulty concentrating at work, sleep issues, or health fears. Teens might show irritability, avoidance of school or social situations, or somatic complaints like headaches or stomachaches.

How Is Anxiety Disorder Different from Everyday Anxiety?

Everyone experiences anxiety from time to time—it’s part of how we’re wired to respond to challenges or threats. But there’s a clear difference between everyday anxiety that is transient based on day to day life experiences, and an anxiety disorder that is chronic or persistent that interferes with daily functioning and well-being. Understanding this distinction is an important first step toward knowing when to seek professional help.

Normal Stress vs. Chronic Anxiety

Normal stress is typically connected to a specific situation—like an upcoming job interview, an exam, or a big life decision. It tends to be short-lived and fades once the stressor passes. You might feel nervous or uneasy in the moment, but you’re still able to function, and your symptoms eventually subside.

Chronic anxiety, on the other hand, doesn’t always have a clear cause. It lingers after the stressful event has passed, or can arise seemingly out of nowhere. It can become a constant presence in your life, creating ongoing tension, worry, or fear that feels disproportionate to the actual situation. Chronic anxiety can cause a misimpression of your life.

You could feel like you’re on thin ice, or “waiting for the next shoe to drop”. This may cause you to feel threatened by an impending outcome that is misperceived by being in a constant “fight or flight” or hypervigilant state. When your limbic system is dominating your perceptions, you will see the world through this negative, threatening filter.

Duration, Intensity, and Functioning

One of the most important distinctions is how long anxiety lasts and how deeply it interferes with your ability to function. If you constantly feel on edge, unable to relax, or like you’re bracing for something bad to happen, these are signs that anxiety may be more than just a temporary feeling.

Clinical anxiety often causes significant distress that affects your job, schoolwork, relationships, sleep, appetite, and overall quality of life. It can also manifest physically—through chronic fatigue, poor sleep, muscle tension, headaches, digestive issues, or a loss of the feeling of well-being—making everyday tasks feel exhausting or overwhelming.

This isn’t just “being stressed.” It’s your mind and body being stuck in survival mode.

Common Types of Anxiety Disorders

There are several types of anxiety disorders as listed by the American Psychiatric Association, each with unique characteristics:

• Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD): Chronic worry about everyday issues
• Panic Disorder: Sudden and intense panic attacks with physical symptoms
• Social Anxiety Disorder: Fear of being judged or embarrassed in social settings
• Specific Phobias: Intense fear of a particular object or situation

Anxiety can also co-occur with conditions like depression, ADHD, PTSD, and with health issues—making it even more important to see a professional for diagnosis and treatment if you think you may be suffering from an anxiety disorder.

Effective Treatment Options for Anxiety Disorder

At the Drake Institute, we use instruments like qEEG brain mapping to identify patterns of abnormal brain activity, and also stress Biofeedback testing to measure increased levels of psychophysiologic tension that causes symptoms. These neurophysiologic findings enable our Medical Director to develop an individualized treatment plan to improve brain functioning and reverse psychophysical stress patterns that are driving the patient’s anxiety.

We then use Neurofeedback to train one’s brain to shift to healthier patterns that reduce and resolve anxiety. We also use biofeedback treatment to help a patient reach deep levels of relaxation that they cannot typically achieve on their own. This relaxation reinforces the same improvement. You cannot be relaxed and anxious at the same time, as those states cannot coexist.

Some patients respond better to neurofeedback, while others respond better to biofeedback. We provide both treatment modalities to optimize the best outcomes for patients.

For some patients, Neurostimulation may be important to enable one to get unstuck out of an abnormal, unhealthy pattern. With Neurofeedback, we may also include swLoreta, which is the most powerful Neurofeedback technology available, whereby a patient can improve entire functional networks of the brain.

Drake Institute’s Non-Drug Treatment for Anxiety

The conventional approach to treatment for anxiety disorder typically includes psychotherapy and medication. However, for over 40 years, the Drake Institute has developed a highly effective, drug-free treatment that produces long-lasting improvement sustained by the patient developing self-regulation.

Here’s how our treatment works:

First, we use biofeedback instruments to measure physiologic indicators of anxiety, including muscle tension, hand temperature, galvanic skin response, and variability. Next, we use qEEG brain mapping to identify abnormal brainwave activity linked to anxiety. Depending on what we feel is best for the patient, we may start the patient with brain map-guided neurofeedback to improve brainwave patterns linked to anxiety. In some patients, we may start off with stress biofeedback to help the patient reduce tension levels to normal. Our treatment provides real-time visual and auditory feedback to teach you how to reduce abnormal tension levels, restoring a healthy physiological balance to your body and brain.

While traditional relaxation techniques like meditation may help you feel calmer, they cannot confirm whether or not you’re reaching the stable and deep levels of psychophysical relaxation that optimize healing. Our clinical biofeedback treatment can help patients confirm that they are consistently reaching deeper levels of relaxation needed to break up stress patterns that were causing symptoms and illness. By developing self-regulation ability and skills, this can create lasting changes in how your body responds to stress.

Unlike medication, which only works while you're taking it, our treatment helps you develop lifelong skills you can use to reduce anxiety via self-regulation techniques. In short, we will teach you to shift out of “fight or flight” mode naturally so that you can maintain better emotional balance and prevent anxiety from taking you over again and disrupting your autonomic nervous system.

Seeking Help Is a Sign of Strength

If you’re struggling with anxiety, you’re not alone—and you’re not weak. Asking for help sometimes takes courage. The sooner you reach out, the sooner you can find relief and reclaim control over the quality of your life.

Contact The Drake Institute Today!

Our comprehensive non-drug treatment helps address abnormal brainwave patterns and psychophysiologic reactions that produce anxiety, allowing you to reduce or resolve symptoms without medication.

If you or a loved one are experiencing anxiety, please call us at 1-800-700-4233 or fill out our free consultation form to get started.