Gut Reactions To Stress
The reason that you can experience diarrhea when you are stressed is directly related to your body’s programmed stress response, what is commonly referred to as our “fight-or-flight” reaction.
The fight-or-flight reaction did a great job in helping humans to survive as a species, particularly back when they were often faced with things like hungry lions. But this same reaction has become more troublesome in light of the challenges you are faced with, and the fast pace of, modern life.
When you come across something that you perceive as threatening, your body reacts with a variety of physical changes. Heart rate and respiration increase, your muscles tense up, blood is directed toward your extremities, and most relevant to the current discussion, your colon contractions speed up. In some cases, this increase in colon activity can result in the symptom of diarrhea.
Can Stress Really Cause Anxiety
Yes! Long periods of stress can be the trigger for clinical anxiety, a medical condition. In the body, stress hormones, called cortisol and corticotropin, regulate how the body regulates pressure. When normal amounts of stress occur, these hormones are released in response to the perceived threat and then fade away shortly after. Stress is a very normal, and necessary, response that our bodies have to protect ourselves from harm.
However, when long bouts stress occur, there is an increase in cortisol and corticotropin present in the body for longer periods of time. That boost in the presence of hormones is what leads to clinical anxiety and mood disorders.
What does long-term stress look like? Many people experience symptoms such as:
- Exhaustion
- Sleeping difficulties including insomnia, difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep
- Headaches
- Racing heart
- Feeling hyper-vigilant and on-edge
Stress and anxiety, although, are not inherently the same. While they share many common symptoms, the difference is that stress is the response to a situation and anxiety is a reaction to that stress.
Anxiety may have the same symptoms of stress as outlined above and/or persistent intrusive thoughts, unrelenting feelings of worry, fear, panic attacks, or other physical symptoms. While the cause of anxiety is complicated and unique to each person, there tend to be many common triggers.
That Magical Mystery Chemical Serotonin
Serotonin is a workhorse hormone that regulates moods and impacts processes throughout the body. Low levels of serotonin are associated with depression, anxiety, suicidal behavior and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Fluctuating serotonin levels can cause blood vessels to constrict and muscles to tighten, triggering both migraines and tension headaches.
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Techniques To Manage Stress And Anxiety
Its normal to experience stress and anxiety from time to time, and there are strategies you can use to make them more manageable. Pay attention to how your body and mind respond to stressful and anxiety-producing situations. Next time a stressful experience occurs, youll be able to anticipate your reaction and it may be less disruptive.
The Answers To Your Constipation
Change your Mind: Change Your Constipation
Constipation just as a good number of diseases and complications can be a mental problem. If that is the case, you will need to change your mind.
Leading scientists connect constipation with being stuck in the past and refusing to release old ideas. The answer to your constipation caused by grief, depression or any emotional factor is to create a new thought pattern. You need to harness the power of affirmations to overcome grief, anger, depression, and other issues that are making you stuck in the past. Release your past and let new and fresh ideas to enter your mind. Allow life to flow through you.
Take Proper Care Of Your Body
If you are depressed, you are likely to neglect your body. This will further worsen your constipation. You need to take good care of your body by eating the right foods. Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables. Also, exercise regularly.
Sleep Right
Do not spend your nights feeling sorry about yourself and crying. This will not help you. Make sure to get adequate sleep at night and eventually you will see your depression diminish and this will positively affect your digestive health.
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Managing And Preventing Headaches
Because the majority of headaches experienced by adults are tension headaches, and these headaches are caused by stress, a great proportion of these headaches can be avoided or at least minimized with effective stress management techniques. Additionally, because stress can make migraine sufferers more susceptible to their migraine triggers, stress relief techniques can help avoid many of these severe headaches as well. And, finally, because stress management techniques can strengthen the immune system , those who practice regular stress management techniques can avoid at least some potential secondary headaches by avoiding the health conditions that cause them.
How To Manage Allergy Symptoms Triggered By Stress
- Identify stress triggers and ways to cope with them.
- Get enough sleep every night
- Practice relaxation techniques such as meditation or breathing exercises.
- Work out as a part of your daily routine, since physical activity can help release feel-good hormones and combat stress. Your body also releases the hormone epinephrine, which acts as a natural and can make breathing easier.
- Continue with allergy medications as prescribed by your doctor.
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Anxiety Can Cause Neuropathy
Anxiety and stress do affect the body in many different ways. A few of the most obvious symptoms of stress include numbness, burning, tingling, and pain or discomfort when moving. These symptoms are very similar to what you might feel with neuropathy. Thats why its very easy to think you have neuropathy when you actually dont. If you assume thats what youre dealing with and never confirm it with your doctor, you wont be able to address the actual problem .
Other Ache And Pain Issues
It should also be noted that anxiety is an incredibly complex condition that causes various changes to the way your body operates. Some people experience throat pain. Others experience unusual nerve sensations in their legs. Others experience random cramping. Still others experience abdominal discomfort or shooting pains that have no apparent causes.
Only a doctor can diagnose where these pains came from. But there are countless examples of aches and pains that are the result of anxiety despite no apparent physical reason for them to occur.
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Does Stress Cause Pins And Needles
There are two types of tingling sensation you can experience paresthesia and dysaesthesia. Paresthesias are tingling or nerve pricking sensation that is usually harmless, but they can indicate various underlying medical conditions. Dysaesthesia, on the other hand, is most likely related to emotional stress. So, it seems like stress is most likely cause of tingling sensation..
How To Deal With Prolonged Stress
If you think that you are being affected by prolonged stress, there are things that you can do to help find relief. Establishing effective stress management practices is important for maintaining good physical and mental health.
Even if you cannot always control the sources of your ongoing stress, you can manage the ways that you respond and cope. Some strategies that might help are listed below.
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How Emotions Affect Our Body
Why do our feelings sometimes make us sick?
Our lives are filled with emotions, from anger to shame, fear to delight, says Tracy A. Dennis, PhD, associate professor in the department of psychology at Hunter College, the City University of New York.
Each of these emotions causes complex physical responses. When were angry, for example, our heart rate increases, adrenaline flows, blood pressure spikes, and we see red, Dennis says.
These physiological and neuroendocrine changes associated with emotion influence all aspects of our body, including the digestive system, Dennis tells WebMD. These physical responses can start and stop quite suddenly and be very intense.
Dennis says its the intensity of emotions that can send our body into overdrive, producing immediate gastrointestinal distress stomachaches, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea.
Am I Experiencing Stress Or Anxiety
Chances are that you are probably experiencing a little bit of both, but one may be more overwhelming. Here are some signs that can help you distinguish between anxiety and stress:
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The Effects Of Anxiety On The Body
Anxiety is a normal part of life. For example, you may have felt anxiety before addressing a group or in a job interview.
In the short term, anxiety increases your breathing and heart rate, concentrating blood flow to your brain, where you need it. This very physical response is preparing you to face an intense situation.
If it gets too intense, however, you might start to feel lightheaded and nauseous. An excessive or persistent state of anxiety can have a devastating effect on your physical and mental health.
Anxiety disorders can happen at any stage of life, but they usually begin by middle age. Women are more likely to have an anxiety disorder than men, says the National Institute of Mental Health .
Stressful life experiences may increase your risk for an anxiety disorder, too. Symptoms may begin immediately or years later. Having a serious medical condition or a substance use disorder can also lead to an anxiety disorder.
There are several types of anxiety disorders. They include:
Can Anxiety Cause Weird Symptoms
Yes. Anxiety can cause a wide range of physical symptoms. These may include headaches, fatigue, muscle aches, nausea, shortness of breath, as well as a wide range of other symptoms. In fact, anxiety can cause almost any symptom imaginable. This is because anxiety causes the body to produce stress hormones. These hormones cause your nervous system to go into overdrive. They can also cause a wide range of symptoms that appear to have nothing to do with anxiety. The good news is that, even if anxiety is causing your symptoms, you can treat them. This will not only help you feel better, but it will also prevent these symptoms from getting worse..
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Is Your Overactive Bladder Affecting Your Mental Health
The symptoms of overactive bladder tend to be intensely physical in nature, from sudden urgency to urinate to leaking urine and racing to the bathroom day and night. The condition can also take a toll on your mental health, and that can be trickier to measure.
The anxiety brought on by urinary urgency, which can snowball into stress urinary incontinence , can wreak havoc on your day-to-day life and change the choices you make and how you think, act, feel, and relate to other people.
Many people with OAB feel uncertainty, anxiety, and stress due to the condition and its symptoms, and a study published in September 2017 in the International Neurourology Journal has linked living with OAB to higher risk for anxiety and depression.
OAB can saturate your existence and affect all aspects of your life, including the things that you do, things you do for fun, your relationships, says Emily Slopnick, MD, a urologist at Cleveland Clinic.
Take this quiz to figure out just how severe your OAB is, whether its having a significant impact on your mental health, and if it might be time to consider tweaking or changing your treatment plan.
When Do These Physical Symptoms Of Anxiety Signal A Panic Attack
Panic attacks often include physical anxiety symptoms, like sweating, trembling, and a fast heart rate. But, as we mentioned, theres one major difference: Panic attacks cause an extreme sensation of fear that strikes out of nowhere. That terror is an integral part of having a panic attack. Beyond that, panic attacks include at least four of the following symptoms, some of which you just read about as physical effects of anxiety:
- Palpitations, a pounding heart, or an accelerated heart rate
- Sweating
- Sensations of shortness of breath or smothering
- Feelings of choking
- Feeling dizzy, unsteady, lightheaded, or faint
- Chills or heat sensations
- Derealization or depersonalization
- Fear of losing control or going crazy
- Fear of dying
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Types Of Anxiety Headaches
Doctors dont have a separate name for a stress or anxiety headache. But the most common types of headaches all have a link to anxiety.
Tension headaches. Almost everyone gets one at some point. When you hear people say they have a headache, its usually this kind. Typically theyre not too painful.
Tension doesnt mean stress in this case, but refers to how the headache feels, which may be like a tight band around your head. It can be triggered by anxiety, but its not clear why this happens.
Migraines. These are more severe headaches that can cause painful pounding or throbbing. They can last for hours or even days. Besides pain, migraines can also make you vomit and feel sensitive to light and noise. Theyre very common in people who have anxiety disorders.
Cluster headaches. They arent as common as the other two. Theyre very intense and tend to give you a burning or piercing pain, usually behind the eyes.
Theyre called cluster headaches because of how they happen. You might get them a few times a day for a few weeks or months, and then they just go away. They may not come back for months or years.
People with cluster headaches are more likely to have anxiety typically in the months of downtime between bouts of headaches. Doctors arent sure how cluster headaches and anxiety are connected or which one causes the other.
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