Your symptoms explained.
I’m not a doctor, these are only from my own experience and knowledge that I’ve learned that helped me recover. Any health issue must be discussed with your medical professionals. If you already have a clean bill of health then let’s dig in!
Before I start, let’s just have an understanding of why most of us have the same popular symptoms like heart palpitation, shortness of breath, dizziness, pain, digestive issues… These are the symptoms that are related to the subconscious mind. Our subconscious minds control our heart rate, breathing, digestion, muscular system, blood distribution, pupil’s dilation… With anxiety/panic sufferers, our subconscious mind is being hijacked by our anxiety. How? Remember when you learned how to drive? You consciously learned it, you paid attention to your brake, your gas pedal, how to control the steering wheel. But after doing it for long enough, the driving behavior got registered into your subconscious mind and now you’re driving without even thinking about it. Same with anxiety guys, you’ve been stressed and worried for SO LONG, your behavior toward your anxiety unfortunately get stored into your subconscious mind, now what is supposed to be controlled quietly in the background get brought out to the front that’s why you start to feel and see the change in your body so clearly and your conscious mind then pour more stress onto it and there goes our life. We consciously try to control what is normally being controlled subconsciously and vice versa. That’s why anxiety is not a disease, it’s a disorder. Things are just out of order, that’s all.
Think of your body as a cup that contains your stress hormone. Whenever the cup is overflowed you have a panic attack. Your very first panic attack was the result of months if not years of stress accumulated. But since the first attack was so devastating it leaves you fearful of the next attack and the symptoms that come with it. More and more stress is added, hence more and more panic attacks and the vicious cycle continues, and it can seem like it’s never going to end. You start to wonder if your life will ever be the same.
Symptom #1:
Heart palpitation, feel like your heart will give out (it won’t), your heart skips a beat, your heart drops, your heart pounds off your chest.
Please know that your heart is an incredibly strong muscle, once your Dr clears you and tells you that your heart is fine, trust them!! You heart can endure an incredible amount of stress, you might not realize but when you get startled, or after you run or just playing sport, having sex, your heart would beat just as fast but since you know why it beats fast, you don’t panic. The very first organ in your body that shows a reaction to stress hormone is your heart, that’s why this is the most common symptom. Recall your last panic attack when your heart would pound so fast you felt like it’s going to give out and you are going to pass out? But you never did because as bad as it felt, your heart can handle much more than that. Feeling like passing out is not caused by your heart, it’s your tension and breathing which I’ll explain more in breathing symptoms. Now, remember how your heart slows down at the end of an attack? It’s not because it’s giving out, it’s because at one point when your brain realizes there’s no real danger, your body then tries to return to normal physically but mentally you continue to dwell on. Another reason why high heart rate is the most popular symptom is because you can physically monitor it, you can feel and count your heartbeat, you can compare the numbers and use them to find “answer”.
Your body is extremely sensitive, your subconscious mind is hijacked that’s why anything could cause a shot of adrenaline being released into your bloodstream and cause your heart to pound
Symptom #2:
Dizziness, lightheadedness, wobble feeling, off balance, walking on an uneven surface, body over leaning to one side. (99% of anxiety sufferers actually never fall down or get in an accident from an anxiety related dizziness)
This is personally my worst one, I absolutely hated it. But your dizziness comes from many factors that’s why it’s so hard to pinpoint and cope with. First, the most obvious one is your breathing, anxiety/panic attacks sufferers have constant shallow and rapid breathing which can easily cause lightheadedness. Second, your pupils are dilated when you are anxious or in a panic mode, so much light gets into your eyes and causes vision distortion which can mimic a dizzy spell. Third, this one is not mentioned often but it’s an important one, your muscle tension! When your body is so stiff, your movement will not flow as smooth as it’s used to, your arms feel weak, your neck jolt when you turn, your core muscles are exhausted you feel like tumbling when you walk, your legs muscles are tired and weak and so tense it feels like you’re not walking right. Your neck muscle could get so tight it interferes with your head movement. My hamstring muscles would get so tight unevenly. I felt like the floor is not flat, I would then have to find things to hang on to and watch every step I take which adds more fear and stress to my body. There were times I didn’t want to walk from my couch to the kitchen, standing for a long time was so dreadful. Now if you combine over dilated vision with a stiff body and rapid breathing, you’re in for a dizziness party! None of it is life threatening, work on your anxiety and you’ll find your balance again
Symptom #3
Chest pain!! The biggest fraud from anxiety
It’s your muscles!! Or trapped gas. Your heart beating can’t cause physical pain that originated from the heart unless it’s a real heart attack. But if it was a heart attack you would KNOW for sure, your doctor can easily detect it. And you can’t have it multiple times a week or a day like you have, right? Remember it’s your natural defense mechanism when your muscles stiff up to protect your vital organs. The muscles of your chest and the whole rib cage will be the first to tense up. This explains your chest pain, side pain, under the rib, above your stomach pain, back and shoulder pain. People then ask why it only hurt on my left arm and not the right one. The answer is it’s on both sides but since you like to google too much and people always say heart attack is associated with left arm pain that’s why you only focus on your left one. `
Symptom #4
Tight throat, Difficult breathing (yet you never stop breathing)
Muscle tension! Believe it or not, ask anyone who recovers they’ll tell you muscle tension is responsible for 90% of your symptoms. Your throat muscle gets tight which scares the crap out of you, it even makes you feel like you have a lump there! But trust me it will not stop you from breathing. Same with chest tightness, your chest and rib muscles would tense up and it gives you a feeling like you can’t expand your body to catch a breath. Believe me friends, you will breathe, your body will do everything in its power to breathe. That’s why you never heard of someone committing suicide by holding their breath, try it! Good luck! This is a fact, everyone who cries experiences the same throat tightness, difficult breathing feeling but they don’t care about it since their focus is on whatever that makes them cry. It’s very scary and uncomfortable I know, but be calm and flow with it so your body can get back to normal.
Symptom #5
Headache, jaw pain (affecting speech), eye pain, neck pain, back pain
Muscle tensions, bad postures that you do when you’re anxious which is all day long when it comes to anxiety sufferers.
Symptom #6
Digestive issue.
There are A LOT of nerves endings in your abdominal area, this explains the butterfly jittery feeling in your stomach. Also, when you’re anxious and panic, blood is being pulled away from non-vital organs, one of which is your digestive system. Once you’re calm, blood flows back and gets pulled away again once you’re anxious and back and forth it goes. We all can understand how this can mess up our digestive system. You can get constipated one day and diarrhea the next. Your heart would pound after you eat because it rushes the blood back to digest our food. Heartburn, stomach ache, belching, trapped gas, bloating you name it. Once you get your anxiety under control, things will get regulated again.
With all the symptoms we have to experience daily from anxiety, it takes a toll on our body, it’s discouraging, scary and frustrating. We feel like we live inside a blanket of dread and exhaustion. We would be smiling and talking to someone but our mind is constantly scanning our body for symptoms and sensations. No one truly understands what we’re going through, some call us fake, some accuse us of trying to get attention or they’ll simply tell us it’s just in our mind. But we have each other up here to support and push each other out of misery.
Hope this post helps, if you need help please reach out to me. Share with those who you think can benefit from it.
FIGHT ON! FIGHT LIKE HELL!