Symptoms of anxiety
Anxiety disorders are the most common mental disorders.
Almost 1 in 3 people will experience some form of anxiety disorder in their lifetime.
What we define by anxiety:
Anxiety is a normal reaction when we are afraid or when we expect something negative or worrying to happen in the future. (“I won’t do well at work”, “I’ll fail the exam”, “I’ll embarrass myself”, “I’ll get something serious”). It is a state of tension, uncertainty and fear, resulting from the anticipation of a real or imagined event or situation, and often affecting physical and psychological functioning.
What is the connection between anxiety and the body:
Worry triggers the secretion of stress hormones (adrenaline, cortisol), which prepare the body for ‘fight or flight’. This normal physiological event happens whether the danger is real (a ferocious animal is coming towards us) or unlikely (I’m going to faint in the street and no one will help me).
In other words, anxiety occurs when we behave (think and act) in a worrying way. Just like when we are worried about an event or situation. Given this, anxiety is not a force or a “thing” in itself. Imagining the future in a worrying way is a behavior. Anxiety is not caused by a biological, chemical or genetic problem affecting the brain. Stressors that trigger these fears also contribute a lot. One of the most common terms is post-traumatic stress disorder.
Everyone experiences anxiety at times and this is natural.
Anxiety turns into a ‘disorder’ – a disturbance of normal functioning – when you have feelings and symptoms of anxiety that interfere with a normal lifestyle.
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Dacă tulburarea de anxietate nu este o problemă medicală, biologică, chimică sau genetică, de ce simptomele cauzează anxietate?
Explicația este următoarea:
Simptomele tulburarilor anxioase sunt de fapt simptome de stres, reacții firești produse de hormoni în toate organismele. Presupun creșterea frecvenței bătăilor inimii, încordarea mușchilor, împingerea sângelui către inimă și creier, totul pentru a pregăti organismul pentru „lupta” cu pericolul estimat.
Acestea sunt numite simptome de anxietate
Deoarece un mod de a gândi panicos este sursa principală a stresului care ține corpul într-o permanentă secreție de adrenalină, care epuizează organismul. Practic, organismul nu este bolnav, ci doar „bombardat” cu doze repetate de adrenalină care fac încordarea și „pregătirea pentru luptă” o stare permanentă și epuizantă.
Deoarece fiecare organism este relativ unic din punct de vedere chimic, tipul, numărul, intensitatea, durata și frecvența unor simptome de anxietate vor varia de la o persoană la altă. De exemplu, o persoană ar putea avea doar un simptom ușor sau câteva simptome de anxietate, în timp ce o altă persoană ar putea avea foarte multe dintre simptomele anxietatii și o severitate mare. Toate combinațiile și variațiile sunt comune.[/expand]
The Great IMITATOR
Anxiety is sometimes called the “Great IMITATOR” because of its ability to mimic other health conditions. For those living with chronic anxiety, the number of symptoms it can cause is extensive, ranging from usual to unusual to rare.
Anxiety changes the way we think. Anxiety states will alter your hormone levels and the way you process nutrients. Anxiety will change your perception and awareness so that you notice physical sensations that someone without anxiety would never notice.
Anxiety can even amplify physical sensations. For example, someone without anxiety may have knee pain so mild they don’t even notice it, but a person with anxiety disorder feels severe knee pain because the mind has been altered to be hypersensitive to how the body feels. Anxiety can also create symptoms that don’t exist at all.
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Deseori persoana nu mai observă decât suma de simptome fizice neplăcute și chinuitoare, uneori fără să mai conștientizeze situația care provoacă îngrijorarea. Prin apariția acestor simptome, se produce o suferință în plus. Spre surprinderea multor pacienți, nu există simptome fizice care să nu poată apărea în contextul anxietății sau pe „fond psihic”, de la tremor și palpitații, la leșin, diaree sau paralizii.
Din acest motiv, înainte de a concluziona că anumite simptome sunt legate de anxietate, consultul medical de medicină internă, cardiologie, neurologie sau alte specialități este recomandat. Dar a căuta ani de zile o boală fizică poate întârzia diagnosticul de tulburare de anxietate și ajutorul, care reprezintă ajutor pentru psihic și nu pentru corp.[/expand]
Anxiety is an (unpleasant, sometimes unbearable but useful) signal that something in our mental life is not healthy/balanced/adapted.
To help you, we have prepared an extensive list of symptoms of anxiety.
Check if you recognise yourself in the anxiety symptoms below.
The most common symptoms of anxiety:
Symptoms of anxiety associated with the chest and thoracic area:
- Tremulous sensations in the chest
- Cough, persistent coughing attacks
- Asthma symptoms and attacks
- Chest pains
- Feeling of pressure in the chest (like a weight on the chest)
- Oesophageal spasms
- Heart failure or anxiety attack (panic attack), with the idea that you are having a heart attack
- Heart palpitations
- Painful throbbing at the base of the throat
- Irregular pulse
- You feel like you have to force yourself to breathe
- Feeling short of breath
- You think it’s hard to breathe, you feel suffocated
- Excessive spanking
- Fear that “I can’t breathe”
- Stiffness, pressure or tight band feeling around the ribs
- Stinging in the chest
- Sharp pains in the chest
Anxiety symptoms associated with the head area:
- Headaches
- Headache
- Feeling of “brain fog”
- Burning, itching scalp
- Tight scalp
- Dizziness
- Feeling “stepped on”
- You feel like there’s a tight band around your head, pressure
- Hair loss, hair quality worsens
- Presence in the head of a buzzing, hissing, vibrating, or other types of sounds
- Feeling “cold” in the face or head
- Straining, stiffness or pain in the neck or shoulder
- Head tremor
- Numbness in the face or head
- Tingling in the face or scalp
- “Stabbing” sensations in the neck, head or face
- Feelings of “electric current”, “lightning” and strange pressure in the neck, head or face
- When you close your eyes, you feel it go up
- Painful jaw that feels like a toothache
- Painful locking of the temporomandibular joint
- Teeth grinding (grinding of teeth)
- Feeling “heavy-headed”
- Feeling of pressure in the head, “about to explode”
- You feel that there is something stuck in your ear, that your ear is blocked, that there is a pebble in your ear and you can’t get it out
- Faint sounds
- Hearing loss, frequent or intermittent, deafness in one or both ears
- Pulsating or throbbing sound in the ear(s)
- Scar or itch on the ear that you can’t seem to make go away
- Tinnitus
Symptoms of anxiety involving the mouth, voice, stomach and digestive system:
- An unusual, metallic, ammonia-like or unusual smell or taste in the mouth
- Aerophagia (excessive swallowing of air, distension of the stomach, belching)
- Hot mouth, feeling like the inside of your mouth is burning, tingling or like pins and needles or all of these together or at different times
- Excessive belching or flatulence, distended colon, excessive gas in the abdomen
- Burning sensation of the tongue, tingling or needling sensation
- Constant craving for sugar or sweets
- The “lump in the throat” feeling
- Constipation
- Diarrhoea
- Difficulty swallowing
- Difficulty speaking, pronunciation of certain sounds, mouth feels as if it is not moving correctly, slurred speech
- Dry mouth
- Oesophageal spasms
- Feeling that you can’t swallow properly or that something is stuck in your throat
- Fear of choking, with excessive chewing/chopped food/soup
- You feel like your tongue is swollen
- Lack of appetite, loss of appetite
- Blow to the throat, something stuck in the throat
- You mix words when you speak
- Tight mouth/neck muscles
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Abdominal pains
- Tight abdomen mimicking severe surgical problems
- Feeling of pain in the stomach
- Burn
- Static electrical charge, tingling, numbness, unusual pain, sensation of tenderness in the abdomen
- Digestive disorders, gas, bloating
- Painful spasms in the abdomen
- Belief that you have cancer or other severe abdominal conditions
- The thought of eating makes you nauseous
- Speech disorders (can no longer speak, altered, thicker voice)
- Urgency of urination, urinating, sudden urge to go to the toilet
- Voice changes: hoarseness, uneven tone, loss of voice, etc.
- Pain and symptoms in the genital area, with varying impairment of sex life
- Frequent urination, possibly at night
Symptoms of anxiety involving skin/motion:
- Burning sensation on the skin (hands, feet, face, lips, etc.)
- Skin sensitivity is altered, feel less intense or more intense touches, cold/warm
- Itching, but no rash
- Numbness
- Tingling, prickling, electric current
- Skin is red for no reason on the face, neck or other areas
- Skin feels cold, damp, sweaty, sometimes excessively so
- Skin problems, infections, localized or widespread rashes
- Excessively cold hands or feet, cold spells followed by waves of sweating
- Colour changes, excessive pallor
- Severe skin pain
- Difficult/hard walking
- Feeling of not being able to move hands/feet
- The feeling and conviction that you can no longer walk normally
- Feeling a cold coming on, stuffy nose, red eyes
- Soft body sensation, “weariness sensation”
Anxiety symptoms associated with eyes and vision:
- Distorted, blurred vision
- Dry, watery or itchy eyes at this level
- Stars, flashes in the field of view
- Vision problems, which is impaired/cancelled (mental blindness)
- Light-sensitive eyes
- Dilated or contracted pupils
- Flashing lights when eyes are closed
- Perception of depth is wrong
Symptoms of anxiety associated with the mind and thinking:
- Feeling “bad” without being able to specify what that bad is
- The altered state of reality, of consciousness
- Crazy thoughts
- Deja Vu, a feeling like you’ve done or experienced something before
- Depersonalization (feeling detached from the body)
- Derealization (the world seems altered, otherwise in a fog)
- Difficulty concentrating, short-term memory loss
- Difficulty in speaking
- Difficulty in thinking
- Disorientation, difficulty in concentrating
- Slightly distracted
- Fear of madness
- Fear of losing control
- Fear of impending doom, that something bad will happen
- Feelings of unreality
- Frequent feeling of being overwhelmed, or that there is too much to do or too much to take care of
- Nightmares, bad dreams
- Obsessions about sensation or getting well
- Quick thoughts
- Feeling of slow movement
- Repetitive thinking or “incessant mind disorder”
- Reduced short-term learning ability, difficulty learning new information
- Short-term memory loss, “I can’t remember what I did a few days, hours or moments ago”
- Destroyed feelings, feeling of “empty soul”
- “Stuck” thoughts: thoughts, mental images, concepts, songs or melodies that “sit” in your mind and replay over and over again
- Feeling “trapped in your head”
- Basic anxiety, apprehension or fear
- You often feel like you have the world on your shoulders
Plus, you might feel it, too, compulsively worried that:
- You have a heart attack
- You have a serious undetected illness
- You’re dying
- Not to be crazy
- Losing control all at once
- To hurt yourself/kill yourself
- Uncontrollable, you hurt yourself or someone else
- Loss of control over thoughts and actions
- Doing something embarrassing or making a fool of yourself
- Losing control in public
- Fainting in public
- You’re not breathing correctly
- Losing control of reality
- Drowning or suffocation
- Being alone
The above list, although comprehensive, is not complete, every person may have unique anxiety symptoms, the above are the most common.
What you can do
if you have more of these distressing anxiety symptoms?
- Do your research. Find out more about Anxiety, preferably from medical articles or from a clinic that treats anxiety.
- Go see a psychiatrist. No shame, no fear. For a psychiatrist, anxiety symptoms are as common as cold symptoms are for the family doctor. The treatment is psychological and only secondarily medicinal, but is treatable with very good results. Some herbal remedies can also be used.
- Be ready to start treatment – through psychotherapy you will discover the causes of your anxiety and how to change your life so that it disappears for good.
- Remember that what you think is influenced by the huge amount of stress hormones in your blood and not by an accurate assessment of reality. In other words, even if you think you’re going crazy or dying, it won’t happen just because you think so.
- Relax, breathe slowly and deeply, most symptoms of severe anxiety pass in 10 minutes.
- Learn how to calm a panic attack.
- Get interested in programmes or workshops specialising in the treatment of anxiety.
The most common types of anxiety:
Separation anxiety: excessive fear of separation from the primary caregiver / attachment figure.
Selective mutism: the common inability of a person to speak in public or certain social situations
Phobias: exaggerated fear of a certain object, life or situation.
Social anxiety: fear of social interaction or being criticized by the public.
Panic disorder: sudden and repeated panic attacks that come with constant worry and fear of having another panic attack.
Generalized anxiety: excessive fear and worry about aspects of daily life that cannot be controlled. Exaggerated anxiety.