How long do your anxiety episodes last?

[nj]

Just speaking personally, I realize that I tend to fret over something for about a week, maybe two before life moves on.

It's always the same pattern:

-hearing about something
-checking the symptom to see if I have it too
-freaking a little
-Googling for reassurance
-freaking because the opposite happened
-Googling
-reading anxiety posts in forums
-slowly coming down over the course of a week or so
-anxiety gone
-rinse and repeat every six months or so

[cattia]

Mine can last anything from a week or so to several months. Sometimes the same anxiety will come and go over a period of months too. Generally they tend to last for several weeks at a time and sometimes one fear will run straight into the next.

[Apple81]

I hear ya. Am in the middle of a bad episode. The googling and constant seeking of reassurance is not good for me. Why do we google when it only makes us feel worse?

[panic12]

I've had it almost constantly for about a year :(

[NoPoet]

I used to have blips lasting weeks with a few good days in between. These days when I have blips they usually last 1-3 days, but the truly nasty ones can last a week or so. Don't measure the length of a blip, keep reminding yourself that it doesn't matter how long they last, they will go away.

A blip is usually an indicator that something hasn't been resolved, so looking into the causes can be very enlightening. You'll usually find a number of causes, for example tiredness and stress tend to be present for a blip to happen, and once you get good at it you can actually tell when the blip really started (there tend to be a lot of warning signs that get overlooked).

Writing down every possible symptom you get during a blip can help. That way, when your blips occur further apart, if you get symptoms that worry you, you can check them against your list. It's surprising how easily you forget the symptoms of a blip once it's over so keeping a list is helpful.

[almamatters]

My symptoms used to last for a few days at a time , at the most for a week.
Something seemed to happen in May and have had constant symptoms since