Anxiety And Stress
Posts tagged Having A Heart Attack
An overview of potential anxiety physical symptoms
Dec 19th
Anxiety comes in all levels of severity as well as a litany of physical symptoms. Each person is different when it comes to what their worst or most debilitating symptom is.
Generally there are several universal physical symptoms that people with anxiety suffer from, they are as follows.
Heart palpitations are the first one. People with anxiety almost all complain of some sort of heart related issue. That is why people assume at first that they are having a heart attack and not an anxiety attack. The symptoms can be palpitations, rapid heartbeat, chest pain, or a tightness of heaviness in the chest area.
Another common physical symptom is fidgetiness. People with anxiety have a plethora of nervous energy. Not knowing how to expend all that energy results in being fidgety. Tapping fingers, toes, feet, or anything else that can be moved. Pacing, organizing, cleaning, walking, alphabetizing, cleaning more, getting up then sitting down only to get up again are a few of the ways that people deal with this physical symptom of anxiety.
Breathing is also a major physical symptom of anxiety. People who suffer from anxiety generally breathe shallow. That is why one of the first things they tell you when trying to calm you down is take a deep breath. This is the bodies’ natural way of relaxing itself. It increases oxygen to the brain. People with anxiety however don’t do this because they are too tense. This does not allow them to take deep breaths, which in turn increases their anxiety.
Weight gain or weight loss is another symptom or sigh of anxiety. Some people will eat to deal with the anxiety, while others lose their appetite entirely. When this occurs it is important to make sure that you are getting the correct amount of calories and vitamins as a person with anxiety generally burns more calories than other people.
The need to fight or flight as they call it. While this may not seem like a physical symptom, I assure you it feels like one. When you are having anxiety and are in a situation that is uncomfortable to you the need to flee that situation is physical. Your whole body is tense and just waiting for you to give in and take off. This is due to all the adrenaline that your body is producing as a result of your anxiety.
Light-headedness and nausea are also possible physical symptoms of anxiety. The two generally go hand in hand. When a person is dizzy or light headed that has a direct result on your stomach, creating nausea. When your head is spinning like that, it is as if you are motion sick even though you are not in a car, hence the nausea.
While there are several other symptoms that go along with anxiety they are more psychological and have no physical sign. The above is the most common physical symptoms that people with anxiety suffer from. While there are more, as each person is unique, these are the ones that would most likely be asked about to determine what is going on with an individual.
Anxiety – What is an Anxiety Symptom?
Sep 10th
Am I having a heart attack? Am I dying? Or is it anxiety? Many symptoms of anxiety mirror symptoms of other illnesses. This is because the “fight or flight” response is triggered in anxiety attacks and the body will respond as if it is threatened. The heart will race; the breathing will become shallow, sweats will breakout over the body to keep it cool in preparation for flight, these are all signs of anxiety, or an anxiety attack. Attacking anxiety back and regaining control over your reflex responses will help reduce the number, frequency and severity of your anxiety symptoms.
When an Anxiety Symptoms is Harmful and When it Isn’t
There is a wide range of anxiety symptoms that may be no more than a mild feeling of uneasiness and as intense as extreme fear. In some cases, a little amount of anxiety is good and normal and it may even help to improve a person’s performance. There are features like having heart palpitations or a racing heart as well as a lot of sweating that point in the direction of being an anxiety symptom. Symptoms such as irritability and lack of concentration as well as having strange thoughts and having extreme mood changes are psychological symptoms.
Treating Anxiety Stress Symptoms
One may wonder as to what the causes of anxiety symptoms are and who the people at greatest risk are. The answer lies in the fact that anxiety symptoms are a result of anxiety disorders which may occur due to a change in the way amygdale, which is a small organ in the subconscious brain, reacts. This is also known as anxiety switch. For treatment to be effective, there is a need for concentrating directly on these symptoms and the treatment should be aimed at the root causes of any anxiety disorders, which in other words, is an inappropriate reaction of the amygdale.
It may be noted that everybody may have experienced anxiety symptoms at some point of time in their lives and most are able to effectively deal with such situations. When there is a lot of unusual rise in the adrenaline levels in the blood it sets off a chain reaction of normal but wrong reactions which results in powerful anxiety symptoms that greatly affect the person afflicted.
There are also instances of some people experiencing symptoms when there is no obvious cause and these are known as free-floating symptoms that can be discontinuous in nature or may continue over a longer period of time. Some even have situational anxiety wherein the anxiety symptoms can be correlated with particular situations.
One may also wonder whether anxiety symptoms are harmful and the answer is certainly not. They do not cause harm to the person even though they elicit a sense of horror and scare the person but in effect anxiety symptoms are not harmful, being exaggerations of normal body sensations and reactions. It bears repeating that to treat anxiety symptoms, one has to address the root cause, which lies in the amygdale, where anxiety is created and stored as well as sustained.