Everyone has felt anxiety or have been nervous in their lifetime but what if these feelings are crippling and affect your everyday life? If that’s the case, you may be suffering from an anxiety disorder and may need to see a psychiatrist in NYC.

According to the American Psychiatric Association, Anxiety disorders are the most common emotional disorders and they affect more than 25 million Americans so even if you’re not the one afflicted with the disorder, you may know someone else who is.

Here are the five main types of anxiety disorders treated by psychiatrists in NYC:

Panic disorder: People who have this condition are suddenly struck by feelings of terror repeatedly and without warning. In some cases, the symptoms – sweating, chest pain, and heart palpitations – make the person believe that they may be having a heart attack.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: People with OCD are pestered by constant thoughts or fears that will cause them to perform rituals and routines. The thoughts are obsessions and the rituals are compulsions, hence the name of the disorder. Sometimes, these routines can affect a person with OCD’s life by making them late for work or even cause them to not being able to get to sleep until certain rituals are done, and are done correctly.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: This condition develops after a traumatic or terrifying event. This could mean anything from an unexpected death of a friend or family member, a sexual or physical assault, natural disaster and in this day and age, a terrorist attack. People who suffer from PTSD are often plagued by frightening thoughts and by memories of the event that caused the disorder.

Social Anxiety Disorder (also known as social phobia): The person suffering from SAD is often overwhelmed by everyday social situations – even something as simple as leaving one’s house can be a chore. Their fears often centers on the feeling of being judged by other people. People with SAD are also afraid of doing something that will cause them to be ridiculed by others.

Specific Phobias: This is when a person has an intense fear of an object, a person or a situation. Some of the more common phobias are a fear of heights, a fear of flying or a fear of being in large crowds and like social anxiety disorder, the level of fear a person has when they suffer from a phobia is usually overwhelming to the point where it sometimes affects their everyday life and causes them to avoid common situations.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Just like its name it’s generalized anxiety so there more than likely isn’t a specific fear or cause, but the person suffering will have excessive and sometimes unrealistic worry even if no event has happened to cause the anxiety.