Is anxiety genetic?
 

My cousin posted yesterday on Facebook about how he suffers from anxiety (so much so that he sought professional help in the past). I too both suffer from anxiety. I was wondering if it was genetic? Obviously we have the same grand parents.

As far as I'm aware a lot of mental health problems can have a genetic component, but there's also lots of environmental and other factors that can contribute.

It comes down to the age old debate of nature vs nurture. There's evidence for both. Nobody knows for sure, but there will be a genetic element and an environmental element. It may be that in your genes you have a predisposition for anxiety, and it lies dormant until there is sufficient stress in the environment to activate it.