Types Of Anxiety Disorders:
Generalized Anxiety Disorder is characterized by chronic and exaggerated worry and tension, much more than the typical anxiety that most people experience in their daily lives. People may have trembling, twitching, muscle tension, nausea, irritability, poor concentration, depression, fatigue, headaches, light-headedness, breathlessness or hot flashes.
Panic Disorder: People with panic disorder have panic attacks with feelings of terror that strike suddenly and repeatedly with no warning. During the attacks, individuals may feel like they can’t breathe, have lost control, are having a heart attack or even that they are dying. Physical symptoms may include chest pain, dizziness, nausea, sweating, tingling or numbness, and a racing heartbeat. Some people will have one isolated attack, while others will develop a long term panic disorder either way, there is often high anxiety between attacks because there is no way of knowing when the next one will occur. Panic disorders often begin early in adulthood. Many people with panic disorder also suffer from agoraphobia . See more on Panic Attacks.
Phobias are irrational fears. Individuals with phobias realize their fears are irrational, but thinking about or facing the feared object or situation can bring on a panic attck or severe anxiety.
What Are The Symptoms Of Anxiety
When Spider-Man is in a dangerous situation, his Spidey-sense starts firing. Its a sixth sense that alerts him to danger and heightens his fight or flight.
Anxiety works a lot like that. When you feel anxious about a situation, your brain starts sending out high alert signals. Its how your body prepares you to fight, flee, or freeze. In the right circumstances, anxiety can save your life.
Chronic anxiety is a different story. It stretches your nerves, the same way you can stretch out an elastic band. If your nerves stretch for too long or too often, its hard for you to return to normal.
Why Do I Feel Anxious And Panicky
Anxiety is a feeling of unease, worry or fear. Everyone feels anxious at some point in their life, but for some people it can be an ongoing problem.
A little bit of anxiety can be helpful for example, feeling anxious before an exam might make you more alert and improve your performance. But too much anxiety could make you tired and unable to concentrate.
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Temporarily Relief For The Sick Feeling
Most over the counter medicines that calm the stomach can be mildly effective at relieving most of the sick feeling. Even though the nausea is caused by anxiety, some of the symptoms can be relieved with medicines.
For issues like swollen glands, treating them can be a bit more complicated. That’s because your glands aren’t always swollen, and if they are it is not usually that severe. Yet focusing on that part of the body can make us hyper sensitive to physical changes, and they feel more distressing. Your body is so attuned to the way you feel that it starts to believe that it feels significant issues, out of proportion with the reality.
The only way to reduce that is to reduce your anxiety and to do that you need to start to understand your anxiety better. Explore our website for more information, or speak to a specialist to begin treatment.
SUMMARY:
Anxiety can cause problems with the gut, and can lead to adrenaline related changes to the stomach, all of which can cause feelings of illness. Chronic anxiety may also have other complications. No matter the cause, anxiety reduction is the only effective long term solution to eliminate these feelings.
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Can Excessive Worry And Anxiety Cause A Stress Response
Stress comes from the demands and pressures we experience each day. Long lines at the grocery store, rush hour traffic, a phone ringing nonstop, or a chronic illness are all examples of things that can cause stress on a daily basis. When worries and anxiety become excessive, chances are youâll trigger the stress response.
There are two elements to the stress response. The first is the perception of the challenge. The second is an automatic physiological reaction called the “fight or flight” response that brings on a surge of adrenaline and sets your body on red alert. There was a time when the “fight or flight” response protected our ancestors from such dangers as wild animals that could easily make a meal out of them. Although today we don’t ordinarily encounter wild animals, dangers still exist. Theyâre there in the form of a demanding coworker, a colicky baby, or a dispute with a loved one.
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Your Stomach Is All Sorts Of Messed Up
Anxiety really hits the G.I. system hard, says Dr. Potter. People with anxiety may notice general stomach pain, constipation, diarrhea, or other kinds of G.I. distress, she explains.
A lot of this may boil down to what experts call the gut-brain axis, which is a communication system between your brain and the enteric nervous system that governs your digestion. This connection is why stress can so easily mess with your poop. Theres also the fact that anxiety-induced lifestyle choices like eating foods that dont agree with you or not exercising can affect your digestion as well.
What Happens With Excessive Worrying
Worrying is feeling uneasy or being overly concerned about a situation or problem. With excessive worrying, your mind and body go into overdrive as you constantly focus on “what might happen.”
In the midst of excessive worrying, you may suffer with high anxiety — even panic — during waking hours. Many chronic worriers tell of feeling a sense of impending doom or unrealistic fears that only increase their worries. Ultra-sensitive to their environment and to the criticism of others, excessive worriers may see anything — and anyone — as a potential threat.
Chronic worrying can affect your daily life so much that it may interfere with your appetite, lifestyle habits, relationships, sleep, and job performance. Many people who worry excessively are so anxiety-ridden that they seek relief in harmful lifestyle habits such as overeating, cigarette smoking, or using alcohol and drugs.
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Not All Health Worries Indicate Health Anxiety
Being concerned about your health is not the same as health anxiety. It’s normal to be worried about your health from time to time. You may wonder if your stomachache is a sign of a more serious condition. If you have had a severe illness in the past, you may be anxious about an upcoming imaging scan.
“There is a difference at least medically speaking between a person who has no symptoms or minimal symptoms and is frequently worried and anxious about being or getting sick and a person who is worried about concerning symptoms,” says Dr. Scarella. However, he notes that anxiety about real health conditions can also become problematic.
People with health anxiety often misinterpret normal or benign physical symptoms and attribute them to something more serious. For example, if they were to compress an arm while asleep, instead of rolling over and shaking off the numb feeling, they might worry they were having a stroke. Symptoms produced by anxiety which can include muscle pain, chest pain, heart rate changes, headaches, and dizziness, among others can heighten existing anxiety about one’s health.
Simple Strategies Can Reduce The Headaches Upset Stomach And Shortness Of Breath That May Be Triggered By Emotional Stress
You’ve had headaches on and off, or possibly nausea, or muscle pain. It could be emotions, rather than a physical illness, driving your symptoms.
Blame your autonomic nervous system. This is a system in your body that you don’t consciously control, but that regulates things like your heart rate, breathing, urination, and sexual function. It’s also the system that reacts when you are under a physical threat. The autonomic nervous system produces your fight-or-flight response, which is designed to help you defend yourself or run away from danger.
When you are under stress or anxious, this system kicks into action, and physical symptoms can appear headaches, nausea, shortness of breath, shakiness, or stomach pain. “Doctors see it all the time patients with real pain or other symptoms, but nothing is physically wrong with them,” says Dr. Arthur Barsky, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
In today’s world, with the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic toll, many people may be noticing new physical symptoms without realizing what’s causing them. “This is a terribly stressful time,” says Dr. Barsky. “There is stress about what our lives are like, the ominous threat of getting the virus and getting sick. It’s already clear that the pandemic is heightening anxiety and sense of stress.”
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Can Anxiety Cause Headaches
Headaches are associated with chronic anxiety.
Headaches are common in and of themselves, but they aren’t necessarily a common symptom of the general anxiety you might feel here and there.
However, headaches including migraines can be a complication of anxiety disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder . This type of anxiety disorder is characterized by persistent, excessive worrying that disrupts a person’s day-to-day life.
Anxiety: The Common Symptom That Often Goes Unnoticed Even By Those Who Have The Condition
She continues: The ENS has a big job controlling a number of things, including swallowing and releasing the enzymes needed to break down food. As the enteric nervous system is closely linked to the central nervous system, your two brains are constantly in communication and can cause changes to each others behaviour.
If you have anxiety, a chemical is released within your brain called corticotropin-releasing factor . This chemical sends increased pain signals between your brain and gut, causing you to feel anxious. It can also cause physical symptoms, such as irritation within your digestive system, as well as nausea, spasms and diarrhoea.
Finally, Kamara adds, the stress associated with feeling anxious can also weaken your usually-tight intestinal barrier, causing some of the guts bacteria to enter other areas of the body. This leakage can in turn cause changes within your digestive system like nausea, diarrhoea and abdominal pain.
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What Is Anxiety Exactly
Anxiety is an umbrella term for a range of uncomfortable feelings like fear, worry, and stress. It has both a colloquial and clinical meaning. Sometimes people describe garden-variety episodes of stress as anxiety, but theyre able to cope with and move on from this anxiousness without the stress being overwhelming. Other times, though, anxiety is overwhelming, which is when we get into diagnosable-mental-health-condition territory.
There are various anxiety disorders that can really disrupt a persons life. One is generalized anxiety disorder, which happens when you experience immense, disproportionate fear about any number of circumstances and events, according to the Mayo Clinic. Another is social anxiety disorder, which happens when social interactions trigger your feelings of worry. Yet another anxiety disorder youve likely heard of is panic disorder, when a person has repeated panic attacks involving uncontrollable terror. These bouts of fear are so forceful that people with panic disorder often worry about having panic attacks in the future and avoid anything they think might set one off.
Although the triggers for various anxiety disorders can differ, one major thing they have in common is the potential to cause physical symptoms of anxiety.
Stress Can Be Managed
Often when our brains get overloaded, the stress can manifest physically. The stress you feel from the havoc in your brain sends signals throughout your whole body, eventually reaching your stomach and can cause nausea. The good news is, with the right help, you can overcome this condition, and no longer feel the unbearable feeling of “can anxiety cause nausea?” According to medically reviewed research, anxiety and anxiety-related disorders are among the most common mental health issues in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults. Therapy has proved a successful means to combat anxiety symptoms. While you won’t be directly treating nausea itself, you’ll find that as your anxiety subsides, so will its physical manifestations.
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Is Anxiety Bad For You
A little anxiety is fine, but long-term anxiety may cause more serious health problems, such as high blood pressure . You may also be more likely to develop infections. If youre feeling anxious all the time, or its affecting your day-to-day life, you may have an anxiety disorder or a panic disorder.
Mental And Physical Health
There is a strong connection between anxiety nausea and your mental and physical health. In short, severe anxiety can seriously impact your quality of life.
Anxiety and depression are classified as mental health disorders and they often go hand-in-hand. When anxiety and depression exist together, it can be hard to determine if the anxiety caused the depression or vice versa. The Hope for Depression Research Foundation, an organization that focuses on medically reviewed research, describes depression as a brain disorder and a state of mind.
The National Institute of Mental Health makes the distinction between occasional anxiety as a response to stress and chronic anxiety that turns into generalized anxiety disorder , or an anxiety attack. Its common for people to experience anxiety and stress temporarily. By contrast, chronic anxiety may also be a stress response, but it can become an anxiety-related disorder if it doesnt go away or it worsens over time. Chronic anxiety will usually interfere with your work, school, family life, and other daily activities and it can seriously affect your quality of life.
People that live with anxiety disorders of all types can realize positive long-term improvement when they get the proper medical advice, diagnosis, and treatment. As with any type of severe symptoms, its always best to speak with a trusted professional. You can reach out to your doctor or seek the help of a licensed therapist.
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The Concerning Symptoms Of Anxiety And The Anxiety Loop
When stress hits and your heart rate increases, your breathing quickens or you start trembling, it can be alarming. So alarming that, in some cases, you might even feel anxiety about your anxiety symptoms. This can lead to a worsening of the anxiety you’re already feeling.
When anxiety hits, try to calm yourself with these tips:
- Take deep, controlled breaths
- Close your eyes and try to clear your mind
- Release tension from your body by relaxing
- Accept your anxiety, challenge the validity of your concern and try to shift your focus
If your symptoms become severe, including chest pain and/or shortness of breath, seek immediate medical attention at an emergency room even if you think it’s related to anxiety.
And, if you’re experiencing general anxiety more frequently than usual, consider talking to your doctor or finding a mental health provider especially if it’s disrupting your day-to-day life. He or she can help you understand why anxiety happens and what to do about it.