Anxiety Symptoms – Emotional and Physical

The symptoms of an Anxiety disorder are many. Common symptoms include apprehension, uneasiness, dread, impaired concentration, feeling restless, avoidance, irritability, and cloudy confusion.

However, with some of these symptoms, one could easily attach hypochondria to one or many of the symptoms above. Apprehension and dread, two of the most common symptoms are closely associated with morbid feelings of sickness and death. The symptoms of a panic attack are mainly physical, which is why attaching hypochondria as one of the main attributes to a panic attack is not that far of a stretch.

A panic attack is often mistaken for a heart attack or fear of some serious medical condition.

A panic attack could begin with a number of different physical symptoms; however, the peak fear period usually produces the same feeling. (That you’re going to pass out, and or die.)

It begins with shortness of breath, or sweating, and moves on to hot or cold flashes. After several minutes of uneasiness, your brain begins to wonder just what is going on. Your mind has triggered a release of adrenaline that your body is now responding to. You’ll feel dizziness, general discomfort, and jittery feelings all over. And not understanding what is happening, you get scared. The symptoms just compound on top of each other, your body releases even more adrenaline, and the symptoms get increasingly worse.

After about 5-10 minutes, you begin feeling shortness of breath, and feelings of being detached from yourself. All of this leads to the peak of the attack, where the symptoms are accelerated heart rate, palpitations, and nausea. You are feeling smothered, and you begin to hyperventilate. And right around this point, you may feel a ringing in your ears, extreme dizziness and start worrying that you’re going to drop dead of a heart attack.

Yes, I have had panic attacks this bad. And I know there are tens of millions of people who have had them too. However, after talking to a counselor, he explained certain things to me. A common symptom of heart disease is pain or numbness in the left arm. I’ve felt this many times during a panic attack, and immediately reacted with thoughts of death from a heart attack. However, if you are breathing shallow or your breathing pattern is disrupted because of a smothering sensation, that very same feeling of numbness or pain in the extremities can be caused by a build up of carbon dioxide in the blood. Simply put, you’re not breathing correctly, therefore, the oxygen levels in your blood get thrown out of whack.

If you’re prone to worry, dread, or apprehension, you may feel these symptoms and start self diagnosing for the worse case scenario. And there isn’t a worse case than a fear of dying. Numbness or tingling sensations can lead your mind anywhere from a heart attack, to a blood clot, to cancer.

However, these symptoms are also usually a panic attack. A brutal panic attack doesn’t usually last longer than 30 minutes; however, it is a terrifying 30 minutes. If you feel any of these symptoms frequently, you should seek a mental health professional. Treatment is a very success option, and there’s no reason you should have to suffer. If you experience 4 or more of these symptoms, I would seek help from a mental health professional.

• Shortness of breath or smothering sensation
• Palpitations, pounding heart, or accelerated heart rate
• Chest pain or discomfort
• Trembling or shaking
• Feeling of choking
• Sweating
• Nausea or stomach distress
• Feeling unsteady, dizzy, lightheaded, or faint
• Feelings of unreality or of being detached from yourself
• Fear of losing control or going crazy
• Fear of dying
• Numbness or tingling sensations
• Hot or cold flashes

Mike Morgan.

Articles appearing on Anxiety Cure Blog are written by contributing authors, and the views and opinions expressed are those of the authors only. All News and Press Release information on the pages of Anxiety Cure Blog are cited from public sources on the internet.

Note: The above information is intended to supplement, not substitute for, the expertise and judgment of your physician, pharmacist, or other healthcare professional. It is not intended to diagnose a health condition, but it can be used as a guide to help you decide if you should seek professional treatment or to help you learn more about your condition once it has been diagnosed.


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New Anxiety and Stress Busters

What you may have thought to be your de-stressing routine or anxiety wind down just might have been the source of your stress in the first place.

After a long day:
You start in front of the couch and start in on some chips or a loaf of French Bread until you are in a carb-induced coma.
“People tend to go after carbohydrate-rich food because it kicks up the neurotransmitter serotonin, which has a relaxing effect on the body,” says Lisa Dorfman, RD, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association and author of The Anti Stress Diet.

New Solutions:
Instead of stuffing yourself with that loaf of bread, take a hot bath or shower to relax your muscles and mind. Or lie down and breathe quietly. If you do decide to eat, make that decision consciously. Ask yourself: what are the consequences? What are the benefits? Eight out of ten times, if you just take the time to ask yourself, you’ll skip the chips.

After a fight with your (whomever):
You turn on the tube, and you zone out. That relaxes you, you just want to go somewhere else, turn your brain off.
“It relaxes you all right, it puts you in a stupor,” says Robert Kesten, executive director of the Center for Screen-Time Awareness, a Washington, D.C. non-profit. That TV trance is callused in part by your falling metabolism, studies that find watching television lowers your metabolism more than sleeping does. Also, not to mention, the emotion goes nowhere. It’s simply being stuffed down, waiting to pop right out probably the wrong moment.

New Solutions:
To release the emotional stress and anxiety of a fight, talk to a friend, write in a journal, take a brisk walk, or get some other kind of exercise. If a mental vacation is what you’re after, pick up a book to escape. Once you’ve re-grouped, then talk to your husband. (And remember, never go to bed angry.)

You freak out over your shrinking bank balance
and decide to go shopping.
Compulsive shopping regulates your mood, says James A. Roberts, PhD, a consumer spending researcher at Baylor University.
And when you’re focused on shopping, you’re avoiding feelings of low self-worth or inadequacy.

New Solutions:
If you’re shopping to make yourself feel better, avoid situations that require you to make buying decisions. Get a different rush: Take a ride on your bike, or go for a run to get the adrenaline flowing. A mental health pro can help you deal with your behavior too, and you may want to consult a credit counselor to get control of your finances.

Since you started caring for your elderly mom, you find yourself reaching for the menthols.
“Nicotine briefly releases feel-good chemicals in the brain, include beta endorphins and dopamine,” says Thomas J. Glynn, PhD, director of cancer science and trends for the American Cancer Society.

New Solutions:
Taking a brisk walk or running for at least 20 minutes can also trigger the release of those feel-good endorphins. And immersing yourself in meditation, prayer, yoga, deep breathing, and even reading can keep you calm. Instead of trying to puff away your feelings, talk to a friend or a counselor. And see Health.com for help on quitting.


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Note: The above information is written for information and/or entertaining purposes only. If you feel the need for expert guidance, please seek the advice of a physician, pharmacist, or other healthcare professionals.

Are Midterm Elections Raising Anxiety in America?

Just let the 7th come already and be done with this! The negative ads, the endless stream of polls, the negative ads, the scandals, the what ifs, the fight for power, the negative ads, Michael J. Fox, Rush Limbaugh, the anger, the mud slinging… did I mention those negative ads?

If I could indict some of these guys, I would. The indictment would be almost 400 pages and 600 counts of television harassment in only one hour.

If I had to put the sheer amount of negative ads per hour I see on a scale of 1 to 10… I’d give it a D+.

The United States of America is just a mess, and that alone is a major cause of my anxiety. I’ll admit to that right now. And I think a lot of people should.

We’re living in a country where senior representatives are literally SCREAMING about “illegals” wasting taxpayer dollars, while in 2005, $27,000,000 was spent on car services for Congressmen. That’s TWENTY SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS my friend that you and I paid for in driving around reps.

You would think that a man or woman who has risen to the level of national office, perhaps being the elected representative to be the voice of a hundred thousand people in our government would HAVE HIS OR HER OWN CAR! Or, if they need to rent one, oh, I don’t know, maybe pay for it themselves? Oh, no… look, if you really want to get disgusted, here, Congressional Perks: How the Trappings of Office Trap Taxpayers.

So I’ll just admit it, I find the state of my country, the state of government, and the issues that we face to be disturbing. Disturbing in such a way that it’s a great cause to worry. And I don’t think that I’m alone in this feeling. These are troubling times. I take every ounce of responsibility for my feelings and actions, however, with these midterm elections, the media has created them to be just a big tent circus that I really want to run out of screaming, swallowing as many anti-panic medications as I can. The candidates are the clowns (yes, clowns scare me) we have elephants and donkeys and the master of ceremonies.

I’ll admit that I vote Democrat, I am rather centrist, and I would like to see a change in government. There is no reason for the Republicans to control ALL THREE branches of government, and I think its time for a change. However, I find myself worrying that this might not happen… honest to god worried. I read new polls showing the Democrat edge slipping away just a few weeks before the elections, I fear not enough seats being won, I fear this guy Bush and his entire administration and what they’re doing…

So here are 5 helpful tips that I’m trying to get me through the next two weeks:
1) Turn the TV off, if you can’t do that, mute the commercials.
2) Karl Rove is not the political genius that everyone thinks he is. (Democrat voters, take solace in this article about Rove and his several miscalculations).
3) Meditate, deep breathe, and visualize. Visualization I find to be quite helpful. Visualize a Democrat sweep, and how sweet that would be.
4) Ignore the polls and simply focus on a confident victory that will lead to a Democratic House and Senate.
5) After you’ve seen the Senate and House speakers step down, just ponder the revenge that will be served oh so cold.

So please, November 7th… would you just hurry up and come already !!!