Why Anxiety Hurts and What You Can Do to Feel Better

Anxiety can hurt. It can be emotionally painful and it can be physically agonizing, too--so much so that physical symptoms of anxiety frequently send people to their doctor's office or hospital emergency department (ED). Almost 1.25 million people visited an ED for physical symptoms of anxiety annually between 2009 and 2011.¹ It's important to seek medical help to rule out serious and potentially life-threatening conditions; however, it's frustrating to be discharged with a shrug and casual statement that "it's just anxiety." Read on to learn more about anxiety's physical symptoms and how to feel better when anxiety hurts. 

How and Why Anxiety Hurts

Per year, 1,250,000 people have visited an ED because anxiety's physical symptoms can be frightening. Anxiety mimics serious medical conditions like heart attack, stroke, and severe asthma attacks. Anxiety can cause symptoms in every system throughout the body. They can include, but aren't limited to: 

• Headaches
• Dizziness
• Muscle tension
• Chest pain
• Difficulty breathing
• Acid reflux
• Nausea
• Frequent urination
• Diarrhea 
• Constipation
• Sweating
• Overwhelming fatigue

Researchers are just beginning to understand why there's such a strong link between anxiety and the body. Anxiety physically hurts because the brain and body are intricately connected, each affecting the other. This mind-body connection means that where the mind goes, the body follows and vice versa. This explains why when we're anxious or stressed, deep breathing is effective in calming us. It's why we get butterflies in our stomach or, in the face of worry or fear we get "cold feet."  Have you ever been worried sick? It's because you're body and mind are functioning as one. 

Two major components of the mind-body connection include the gut-brain axis² and the amygdala in the brain.³ The gut-brain axis involves the vagus nerve that allows rapid, detailed communication back and forth between the brain and our gut. It's responsible for those above-mentioned butterflies and that gut-reaction, stomach-dropping response to things that makes us afraid. 

The amygdala is a structure in the brain's limbic system. One of the things it does is release neurotransmitters that carry messages to the nervous system. In response to anxiety, it might order the heart to beat faster and the lungs to breathe more quickly. The body sends responses back, and together, brain and body react to, reinforce, and escalate anxiety. 

The brain and body have an intimate connection that creates and perpetuates anxiety. Despite this, we can do things to soothe our physical symptoms of anxiety and feel better. 

How to Soothe Physical Anxiety and Feel Better

One of the most effective things we can do to take care of anxiety in the body is to learn the game played by the mind and body and then play along. Awareness of the mind-body connection allows you to tune in to the communication between brain and body and do things to disrupt the back-and-forth flow of anxiety. Some things to keep in mind as you step into the path between your brain and body:

• Feeding your gut healthy food will directly affect your brain, helping it reduce anxiety.
• Easing muscle tension through stretching, yoga, or massage soothes the brain and helps it be calm, even in the limbic system.
• Deep breathing will allow the lungs to flood the brain with much-needed anxiety-reducing oxygen.
• Using your nose and essential oils to stimulate the olfactory system can soothe the body from head to toe

These are but a few of the ways you can take advantage of the mind-body connection to feel better physically and mentally. Soothe your anxiety symptoms by understanding why anxiety hurts and using the knowledge to heal body and mind. 

Sources

1. Dark, Tyra PhD., M.A., Flynn, Heather PhD., Rust, George M.D., Kinsell, Heidi PhD., Harman, Jeffrey S. PhD., "Epidemiology of Emergency Department Visits for Anxiety in the United States: 2009-2011". Psychiatric Services. March 2017. 
2. Liang, Shan, Wu, Xiaoli, & Jin, Feng. "Gut-Brain Psychology: Rethinking Psychology from the Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis". Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience. September 11, 2018.
3. Harvard Women's Health Watch. "Anxiety and Physical Illness". Harvard Health Publishing, Harvard Medical School, July 2008.