If you suffer from anxiety attacks, it's very likely that you'll also suffer many anxiety attack symptoms. These are physical symptoms that develop purely as a result of the constant anxiety your body is subjected to. And they can be incredibly damaging, because as an anxiety sufferer you're hyper-aware of even the smallest changes in your body.
These symptoms go on to form a part of a very common vicious circle: you're anxious, your anxiety causes physical symptoms, and the physical symptoms cause yet more anxiety. And then the cycle continues again, and again, and again, each time resulting in more and more anxiety. But there is something you can do, and that's to educate yourself about these symptoms. By understanding what really causes them, and what's actually going on inside your body at the time the symptoms strike, you'll find that they cause you far less concern and you spend less of your time worrying about them.
I'm going to take a minute or two to go over some of the most common anxiety-caused physical symptoms, clearing up exactly why you suffer with them, and revealing the true, underlying causes.
First up, palpitations.
This is where your heart beats unusually fast for no reason at all, often with such force that you'll be aware of your pulse at points throughout your entire body. Palpitations can also be much less severe, and simply cause a permanent "awareness" of your own heart beat, although the heart's pace and rhythm will remain normal. Many anxiety sufferers confuse the sensations of palpitations with the symptoms of much more serious medical conditions like heart attack and heart disease, but the truth is thankfully much less terrifying. And that truth is that you have palpitations simply because, as an anxiety sufferer, you have considerably more adrenaline in your system than a non-anxiety sufferer. Your constant worrying and panicking leaves you permanently on the edge of panic, and the result is often palpitations.
Next up is another very common symptom among anxiety sufferers - headaches.
They can be mild or severe, they can be located almost anywhere in your head, and they can last anywhere from a few minutes to a few weeks.Despite anxiety-induced headaches being unpleasant enough in their own right, anxiety sufferers often make them far worse by fearing that they're the symptom of terrifying conditions and diseases - most notably, brain tumours and brain haemorrhages.
Once again, the truth is much less terrifying.
You develop headaches because of the constant tension in your neck. The tension typically begins high up in your back, and then slowly rises up into your neck, before finally moving into your head. If you suffer with unusually high levels of anxiety, it should come as no surprise that your constant worrying causes you to have far more tension in your back and neck than someone who doesn't suffer with anxiety. So it should also not come as a surprise that you suffer with more than your fair share of headaches, since headaches invariably begin with muscle tension in the back and neck.
Okay, the next symptom is trembling.
The trembling caused by anxiety and panic disorder will most often be found in your arms, and more specifically in your hands and fingers. But it can also be a big problem in the legs. The involuntary movements in your arms, hands, and legs can be very scary, because the movement is completely beyond your control. In fact, the more you try to steady yourself, the more you'll tremble.
As with the other symptoms I've covered, anxiety sufferers will usually decide that the trembling is being caused by some other terrible condition or disease. But also like the other symptoms, the explanation is usually much less terrifying. Your anxiety is with you around the clock, and so there's a massive amount of excess adrenaline in your body, and it's this excess adrenaline that causes your trembling.
Having too much adrenaline in your system causes you to permanently feel as if you've just experienced a genuinely terrifying moment. And so the trembling hits you, just as it would if you really had experienced something terrifying.
Another symptom I should mention here is muscle twitches. This symptom is closely-related to the trembling, since it's also caused by the excess adrenaline in your system. Muscle twitches can also be caused by good old-fashioned stress, and they can also happen after you've done something physically demanding, like a tough workout, or some heavy lifting.
Next up is extreme tiredness.
Again, this is a very common problem for anxiety sufferers. There's no real secret cause for this one - it just comes down to what you put your body and mind through. The constant psychological stress you subject yourself to, and the physical strain this puts on your body, simply wears you down, and the end result of that is often chronic fatigue. What's worse is that sleep usually doesn't help at all in refreshing you, and you'll often wake to feel as bad as you did the night before.
The symptoms I've mentioned today are not the only ones suffered by those affected with anxiety, but they are the most common. By learning their true causes, and finding reassurance that nothing serious is responsible for them, you'll find that your anxiety attack symptoms cause you far less concern.
