Worry: The norm today

Typically nervousness and worry form a part of everyday small matters like work, finances, relationships, health and safety of loved ones; school or college assignments, job presentations and other routine tasks. The focus of worry usually keeps shifting from one task to another. Normally everyone is able to keep control over bothersome thoughts; and life's uncertainties ordinarily don't seem to be getting out of hand. But sometimes, defenses don't match up the stressors; demand overruns the supply of personal energies, and troubles do get out of subjective control.

When anxiety attacks

The attack is the point when worry gets the better of us. Thoughts get incessantly focused on some or the other object of concern and then catastrophic feelings stem up effortlessly. These judgments become difficult to overpower. Usually the psychological defenses come in hand and we can use coping strategies to ward of the negative thoughts. But in the attack, the person becomes helpless.
Anxiety and the body
Sometimes apprehension gets accompanied by tremulousness, shakiness, backache, headache, chest pain, irritability, insomnia, fatigue, dryness of mouth, sweating, nausea and at times even cause diarrhea. The typical example of this is the anxiety felt by the school going child just before the examination. These are physical expressions of turmoil in the mind. They don't have a physical cause but are felt with the same intensity as if there was some problem in the body.
Out of control: Panic attack
In extreme cases this anxiety can progress to a panic attack, which resembles a heart attack and may have to be looked upon as an emergency. These signs point towards a generalized anxiety disorder, which warrants expert evaluation. Panic attacks can be very distressing and one may develop a phobia of the same because they come in unexpectedly without warning. They cannot be prevented because they don't have precedents. One may stop social contact and avoid social situations due to the same.
Family connects
Anxiety is well known to run in families. The neurotransmitter systems or chemicals in the brain, predominantly adrenaline and others like serotonin and GABA get deranged in anxiety. Some or the other external stress factor is the antecedent culprit, which in a susceptible person deranges the brain neurotransmitters and prompts anxiety. Stressful life events play an important role in transforming relaxed individuals into anxious personalities.
What we can do
Anxiety is a long lasting and disabling condition. Medication helps to reduce the physiological (bodily) symptoms, but dealing with the worrisome thoughts is a cumbersome task. Cognitive therapy (CBT) helps to correct the faulty cognitions that direct to undue worries. Behavior therapy reduces all the apprehensive performances. Emotive therapies (REBT) help to correct the wrong emotions. Supportive psychotherapy, relaxation, and biofeedback help in managing the physiological angst component. A combination of different therapies usually works the best.
Why live with it?
It's not worth harboring feelings that pull us down and just tell ourselves that we 'can deal with life' even if we have problems. Life is not to be 'dealt with'; it is to be 'lived'. Its a pledge we have to take to live it right and live it stress free!