There are so many aspects of a teen’s day-to-day life that can cause anxious feelings, from worrying about an important exam to planning what you want to do after graduation. But feeling anxious every now and then doesn’t automatically mean that you have anxiety.

Anxiety is a diagnosable mental health disorder that can affect every part of your life, even if there’s nothing to stress about. If you feel like you’re exhibiting symptoms of anxiety, it can be beneficial to take an anxiety quiz for teens. It can help you determine if you need further treatment and resources to improve your overall quality of life.

We’ll talk about the benefits of taking an anxiety quiz for teens and things you should be looking for when choosing one. Then we’ll discuss the next steps that you should take following the quiz.

When and why you should take an anxiety quiz

Anxiety refers to generalized anxiety disorder, which causes overwhelming feelings of worry, uncertainty or stress, even if there isn’t an exact cause. It can result in symptoms including lack of concentration, fixating on potential negative outcomes of a situation and increased irritability. Anxiety can make it difficult for you to effectively turn in your schoolwork, maintain friendships and enjoy your extracurricular activities.

But if you’re unsure about whether you’re experiencing normal worry or generalized anxiety disorder symptoms, there are quizzes that can help.

An anxiety quiz for teens is essentially a screening that helps you determine how your thoughts, behaviors and emotions align with those outlined as the criteria for an anxiety disorder diagnosis by the American Psychiatric Association in the DSM-5, or the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Taking an anxiety quiz for teens can help you:

• Gain self-awareness about your emotions, thoughts and behaviors
• Take responsibility for how your anxiety may be impacting your relationships
• Look at your mental health from a different perspective
• Understand that there’s nothing “weird” or “wrong” about you, regardless of the results
• Determine if you need to seek proper mental health treatment

3 things teens should look for in an anxiety quiz

A quiz for a mental health disorder like anxiety isn’t the same as a quiz that you take in school. It’s all about you and doesn’t have any wrong answers. But that doesn’t mean that you should just take the first one that comes up on the internet.

Online mental health assessments can be valuable tools for gaining insights, improving communication and initiating self-reflection.

They should not be relied upon as the sole basis for a diagnosis.

When you’ve decided to take an anxiety quiz for teens, here are a few things that you should take into consideration before clicking:

• The quiz should be created by a mental health care organization. There are plenty of anxiety quizzes out there that are from commercial companies trying to sell a product or untrustworthy sites that aren’t using research or expertise from a mental health care provider to construct an accurate quiz.
• The quiz should be free. Taking an anxiety quiz for teens may be the first step in your mental health journey, and you shouldn’t be deterred from that step based on cost. Paying for an anxiety quiz also means that you’re likely obligated to the quiz creator in some way, regardless of the results. 
• The quiz should be multiple choice. Even though anxiety disorder symptoms look different for everyone, typed-out responses to online questions can’t lead to an accurate depiction of your symptoms. The system used to create the screening can’t comprehend the millions of possible answers from non-multiple-choice questions. It can cause misleading results.

What to do after you take an anxiety quiz

It’s important to note that you may still feel the need to search for some form of mental health treatment regardless of what the results from an anxiety quiz say. That could mean either booking an appointment with a licensed clinical therapist or starting off slow with self-care and breathing exercises. But if you felt like you had enough worry to take an anxiety quiz, then it’s time to take some additional steps to work on your mental health.

If the results of your anxiety quiz indicate that you likely align with the criteria of anxiety, you should talk to a parent or guardian about booking an appointment with a health care provider to receive an evaluation for a proper diagnosis. The quiz results shouldn’t be taken as an official diagnosis.

Lightfully Teen can help you after you’ve taken an anxiety quiz

We understand that it can be a bit shocking to determine that you might have a mental health disorder, but we’re here to help you learn how to manage your symptoms by getting to the root causes of your worry. You’ll also gain the tools and skills you need to address your anxiety and work toward a happier future.

We can start by doing a formal assessment to find out if you do have an anxiety disorder. If you do have one, we can then help you manage your condition through three levels of care that we offer for teens: Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP), Residential Treatment, and Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP), also called our Day Treatment Program.

The framework of our clinic consists of evidence-based, clearly defined, data-driven and whole-person-centered care.

Change is possible. When you’re ready to take the first step, reach out to our Admissions Concierge Team. We’ll take the next steps together, toward the fullest, brightest version of you.