# Anxiety Disorders > Everyone worries. An anxiety disorder is what it is called when the worry stops switching off and starts making your decisions for you. It is the most common kind of mental health condition, and one of the most treatable. **Source:** https://www.uniquembhs.com/anxiety-disorders-treatments **Practice:** Unique Minds Behavioral Health Services, LLC. Baltimore, MD: 6810 Park Heights Ave, Suite C6, Baltimore, MD 21215 · Washington, DC: 1402 North Capitol St NW, #1, Washington, DC 20002 · Delaware, OH: 1 W Winter St, Suite 211, Delaware, OH 43015 **Phone:** (443) 538-8400 **Clinically reviewed by:** Dr. Victorine (Vicky) Ngang, DNP, APRN, PMHNP-BC, MSN, RN **Last reviewed:** 2026-08-11 ## Quick answer Anxiety disorders are conditions where fear or worry becomes persistent enough to interfere with daily life, including generalized anxiety, panic disorder, social anxiety, OCD and specific phobias. Unique Minds Behavioral Health Services treats them across Maryland, Washington, D.C. and Ohio with psychiatric evaluation, therapy such as CBT and exposure therapy, and medication management where it helps. ## One name, several conditions "Anxiety disorder" is a family, not a single diagnosis. According to the [National Institute of Mental Health](https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/anxiety-disorders), it includes generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder and specific phobias, and while OCD is formally classified on its own, the experience of intrusive worry places it in the same conversation. They share a mechanism: a threat system doing its job too well, too often, about too many things. Which one you are dealing with matters, because treatment differs. Persistent all-purpose worry, sudden panic surges, fear of being judged, and fear of one specific thing each respond best to a slightly different plan. ## What anxiety does to the body Anxiety is not only a thought problem, and for many people the body arrives first. The threat system is designed to prepare you to fight or flee, so it does exactly that: heart rate up, breathing fast and shallow, muscles braced, digestion switched off, senses sharpened. Useful for about ninety seconds of genuine danger. Miserable as a way to sit through a Tuesday. That is why so many people meet a cardiologist or a gastroenterologist before they meet us. Chest tightness, palpitations, dizziness, nausea, a lump in the throat and unexplained aches are all ordinary anxiety symptoms, and all of them feel exactly like something else. Getting the medical workup is right. When it comes back clear and the symptoms do not, anxiety is the picture that completes. ## How an anxiety disorder is diagnosed There is no scan or blood test. Diagnosis is clinical, and it happens in a [psychiatric evaluation](/psychiatry-practices/psychiatric-evaluation) that works through five things: - **What the fear is about.** Everything and nothing in particular, or a specific situation, or being watched and judged, or a thought that will not leave. The answer points at which disorder this is. - **How long it has run.** Anxiety disorders are measured in months, not in a difficult week. - **What your body is doing**, and whether it has been medically checked. - **What you have stopped doing.** Avoidance is the most reliable sign that anxiety has crossed from uncomfortable into disabling. And it is also the part treatment reverses most directly. - **What else could account for it.** Thyroid disease, caffeine, alcohol and withdrawal from it, some prescribed medications, chronic sleep loss, and depression, which co-occurs so often that assessing one without the other is half a job. ## What causes anxiety disorders Nobody can point to a single cause. NIMH funds research into the **environmental and genetic factors** that contribute to anxiety disorders, and notes that family and other environmental factors may influence risk in infants, children, adolescents and adults alike, with particular research attention on anxiety that follows major life events such as pregnancy, trauma or illness. What evaluations tend to surface is a combination: a temperament that has always run alert, a family in which someone else is the same way, and a period of stress, loss or danger that turned the volume up and left it there. None of it makes the anxiety less real, and none of it makes it less treatable. ## How treatment works here Care starts with a [psychiatric evaluation](/psychiatry-practices/psychiatric-evaluation). Your history, your symptoms, and what else could be feeding them, from thyroid problems to caffeine to depression, which often travels with anxiety. From there, most plans draw on two tools. [Cognitive behavioral therapy](/therapy-services/cognitive-behavioral-therapy) teaches you to catch anxious predictions and test them against reality, with [exposure therapy](/therapy-services/exposure-therapy) as its approach for avoidance and rituals. [Medication management](/psychiatry-practices/medication-management) adds a second lever where symptoms are too loud for therapy to get traction. Started carefully and reviewed with you at every step. Both work in person at our Baltimore, Washington, D.C. and Delaware, Ohio offices, and both work by secure video. ## Start with the specific page, or just start If you recognise yourself in one of the five conditions above, its page goes deeper. If you only know that worry is running your days, that is enough to begin: the evaluation exists to do the sorting, so you do not have to diagnose yourself before asking for help. ## What it can look like - Worry that keeps running after the reason for it is resolved. - A body on alert: tight chest, racing heart, restless stomach, clenched jaw. - Avoiding places, people or tasks because of what might happen there. - Sleep that will not come because your mind will not stop rehearsing. - Needing reassurance again and again, and it never lasting long. - Irritability and exhaustion from holding it together all day. - Physical symptoms your doctor has checked and found no other cause for. - Concentration that slips because part of your attention is always on guard. - Planning around the worry (routes, seats, exits, excuses) without noticing. ## How we treat it - [Psychiatric Evaluation](https://www.uniquembhs.com/psychiatry-practices/psychiatric-evaluation) - [Cognitive Behavioral Therapy](https://www.uniquembhs.com/therapy-services/cognitive-behavioral-therapy) - [Exposure Therapy](https://www.uniquembhs.com/therapy-services/exposure-therapy) - [Medication Management](https://www.uniquembhs.com/psychiatry-practices/medication-management) - [Mindfulness-based Interventions](https://www.uniquembhs.com/therapy-services/mindfulness-based-interventions) ## Frequently asked questions ### How do I know if it is an anxiety disorder or just stress? Stress has a cause and eases when the cause does. An anxiety disorder keeps going (for months, across situations, out of proportion to what triggers it), and it starts costing you things: sleep, concentration, places you no longer go. If your worry fits that second description, an evaluation is worth your time. It is a conversation, not a commitment. ### Which anxiety treatment actually works? The strongest evidence supports cognitive behavioral therapy, including exposure therapy for fears and rituals, and certain medications, alone or together. What works for you depends on which anxiety disorder you have and how it shows up, which is what the psychiatric evaluation is for. Treatment is chosen with you, then adjusted until it is actually helping. ### Do you treat anxiety in children as well as adults? Yes. We see children and adults across Maryland, Washington, D.C. and Ohio, in person or by secure video. Anxiety often looks different in younger people (stomach aches, school refusal, irritability), and care is built around the age and the family, not just the diagnosis. ### Can anxiety cause physical symptoms? Very much so. Racing heart, chest tightness, dizziness, stomach trouble and muscle tension are all common, and many people see several doctors before anyone names anxiety. If your medical workups keep coming back clear while the symptoms keep coming back, a psychiatric evaluation can complete the picture. ### How is an anxiety disorder diagnosed? By clinical interview, not by a test. Your provider asks what you worry about and how often, what your body does, what you have started avoiding, how long it has run, and what it has cost you. They also check what else could be driving it. Thyroid problems, caffeine, some medications, sleep loss, alcohol, and depression, which travels with anxiety more often than not. The point is to name which anxiety disorder it is, because treatment differs. ### What causes anxiety disorders? No single thing. NIMH funds research into the environmental and genetic factors that contribute to anxiety disorders, and notes that family and other environmental factors may influence risk across every age group. In practice, evaluations often find a mix: an anxious streak that runs in the family, a temperament that has always been alert, and a period of stress, illness or trauma that turned the volume up. ## Sources - Anxiety Disorders. National Institute of Mental Health. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/anxiety-disorders ## Related pages - [Generalized Anxiety](https://www.uniquembhs.com/anxiety-disorders-treatments/generalized-anxiety-disorder) - [Panic Disorder](https://www.uniquembhs.com/anxiety-disorders-treatments/panic-disorder) - [Social Anxiety](https://www.uniquembhs.com/anxiety-disorders-treatments/social-anxiety-disorder) - [OCD](https://www.uniquembhs.com/anxiety-disorders-treatments/obsessive-compulsive-disorder) - [Specific Phobias](https://www.uniquembhs.com/anxiety-disorders-treatments/specific-phobias-treatment) --- This page is general health information, not medical advice. In a crisis, call or text 988 (988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) any hour, or call 911 in an emergency.