Most often anxious person will avoid communicating with other people.
Many people still think of anxiety disorders as purely psychological conditions. This isn’t exactly true because we aren’t purely psychological beings. Our minds and bodies deeply and readily affect each another.
Someone who has serious problems with anxiety is quite likely to develop an assortment of strange (sometimes unexplainable) physical symptoms. If this is something you can relate with, you must remember that you can’t treat the symptoms hoping that this will make your anxiety go away. Instead, you need to focus on treating your anxiety disorder, which in turn will make all symptoms subside.
Most physical symptoms of anxiety are just an indicator of your inner turmoil, which is your real problem and not the symptoms, regardless of how troubling these symptoms may seem.
Anxiety is a sudden feeling of fear and unease that occurs in response to stressful situations. Aside from this heightened emotional reaction, anxiety sufferers manifest associated physical symptoms.
Common physical symptoms of anxiety
- Heart Palpitations / Pounding heart
- Excessive Sweating / Perspiration
- Uncontrollable Trembling / Shaking
- Shortness of breath / Hyperventilation
- Choking sensations / Difficulty swallowing
- Nausea / Vomiting
- Dizziness / Lightheadedness
- Hot or Cold Flashes
Heart palpitations / pounding heart occur to increase the blood flow to the brain, skeletal muscles and other organs that need an increase supply of oxygen and nutrients for flight or fight.
Excessive sweating / perspiration is a natural occurrence with anxiety. It is designed to reduce body temperature in response to physical exertions during the stress response.
Uncontrollable trembling / shaking is caused by increased tension in the muscles. And when the muscles spasmodically contract, this tension causes these uncoordinated clumsy movements.
Shortness of breath / hyperventilation results from the body’s attempt to increase its oxygen supply. Sometimes, this symptom feels as if one is being smothered by a pillow.
Choking sensations / difficulty swallowing occur due to increased muscle tension in the throat. When the muscles contract, one feels as if food is stuck in the throat.
Nausea / vomiting are unsettling feelings in the stomach that come as a result of spasms of the stomach muscles during anxiety.
Dizziness is a feeling of light-headedness due to loss of carbon dioxide from the blood when one hyperventilates during anxiety attacks. The change in blood pH results to a drop in blood pressure and impairing the oxygen delivery to the brain.
Hot / Cold flashes appear after an anxiety attack subsides. When the body calms down after an overdrive, the body feels cold causing a chilling effect.
All of these symptoms can have other causes besides anxiety. However, there’s a common pattern that you should look for in all anxiety symptoms: they clearly get worse when you worry about them.
If your physical symptoms have actual physical causes, worrying about them will be of little effect both in aggravating or relieving the symptoms. If your physical symptoms are caused by anxiety, they might disappear just as soon as you can take your mind off them.
Warding off physical symptoms of anxiety
If you have been troubled with anxiety and you’re looking for a way to control its physical symptoms, you should know there are several tricks that might work for you. Different things work better with different people, so you should try some of these ideas.
- Get more physical exercise
- Practice yoga and/or meditation
- Try deep breathing exercises
- Try doing relaxing arts and crafts
Ideally, you should focus on doing activities that will keep your mind and body occupied. While you’re distracted, your anxiousness won’t build up as much. That’s something you need to learn to use to your advantage. By doing so, you’ll find it easier to control your anxiety. As you manage to put a hold on your anxiousness, you will be surprised with how quickly your anxious symptoms alleviate and even completely disappear.
