Causes Of Academic Anxiety Among Tertiary Institution Students
[A CASE STUDY OF ILORIN METROPOLIS OF KWARA STATE]

Symptoms of Anxiety
    Anxiety is a vague feeling of dread, a fear with no specific object. Anxiety is an emotion that every one experiences at times. However, when it becomes very intense and continues o recurs over time, it can be a partial basis for a number of psychological disorders. Among these are the anxiety disorders in which the symptoms are primarily psychological and the somatoform disorders in which the symptoms are primarily physical. Anxiety is a physiological response to a perceived threat o danger. When students feel unsafe or uncomfortable, they experience heightened arousal, alertness and physical tension. Symptoms of anxiety may include. Tense muscles, discomfort, unease, fidgeting, restlessness, ties, twitching trembling.
Headaches
Irritability, aggression, anger
Min racing with worrying thoughts
Sleep disturbance, disturbing dreams
Breathlessness, over breathing
Sweating, flushing, blushing.
Needing frequent trips to the toilet
Nausea, light-headedness
A sense of depersonalization, unreality
A desire to avoid or get away from the situation
Symptoms of anxiety are your feeling of stress, apprehension and fear in response to a real or imagined threat. Health and Fitness Dictionary 2006.
Symptoms of anxiety also involve overwhelming feeling of panic and fear, uncontronable obsessive thoughts, painful, intrusive memories, recurring nightmares and other uncomfortable physical reactions.
http//psychservice.ucsd.edu/studentsweb/(2006) psychological and cognitive symptoms.
    The experience of anxiety has two components. The awareness of the physiological sensations (such as palpitations and sweating) and the awareness of being nervous o frightened. A feeling of shame may increase anxiety, that is “others will recognize that I am frightened”. Many people are astonished to find out that others are not aware of their anxiety or if they are, do not appreciate its intensity.
    In addition to motor and visceral effect, anxiety affects thinking, perception and learning. It tends to produce confusion and distortions of perception, not only of time and space but of people and the meanings of events. These distortions can interfere with learning by lowering concentration, reducing recall, and impairing the ability to relate one item to another that is, to make associations.
    An important aspect of emotion is their effect on the selectivity of attention. Anxious people are apt to select certain things in their environment and over look others in their effort to prove that they are justified in considering the situations frightening and in their anxieties by selective response and set up a vicious circle of anxiety, distorted perception, and increased anxiety. If alternatively, they falsely reassure themselves by selective thinking appropriate anxiety may be reduced and they fail to make necessary precautions. DSM – IV 1998 (Diagnostic and statistical Manual of Mental Disorder).
    Wehrenbarg (2005) opined that, the anxiety symptoms are divided into different classifications as shown below and this helps to understand why a symptom is happening or why it continues to happen.