Can anxiety make you sick? Let’s dive in…
Can Anxiety Make You Sick? Most of us think that anxiety is a condition fraught with excessive worrying and stress, and is thus a temporary mental state of unease. The truth is that anxiety is an emotional/mental disorder and it comes with a big energetic and physical component. Most of the physical symptoms associated with anxiety are caused by chronic stress.
Long term stress can have an enormous effect on the physical health of a sufferer, and one of the most common adverse effects of stress on the physical health is experiencing symptoms or feelings of being ill or sick. Such sensations of being ill are often similar to those experienced during an actual illness; anxiety sufferers may feel nauseated, a churning stomach, headaches, etc.
Depersonalization is a common effect of emotional trauma and or prolonged stress where the nervous system can no longer cope at the level of emotion it has for some time.
Medical experts believe that most of the common sensations associated with a feeling of sickness are caused due to the flight or fight response of the body that gets triggered by stress. This leads to fluctuations in the levels of hormones like adrenaline, cortisol, and serotonin. Anxiety and stress cause fear, and during fearful times, the gut transmits messages to the brain which results in hormonal imbalances, feelings of excessive fear, nausea, etc.
So Can Anxiety Make You Sick? – Situational Anxiety vs Chronic Anxiety
1. Situational anxiety
- Most of us feel anxious before a big event like before an important test, before proposing, etc. This is referred to as situational anxiety and it is a natural reaction, even though it is a problematic one.
- Most of us may not experience anxiety in a lot of situations, but anxiety sufferers tend to experience it consistently before all events in their lives. This can increase stress levels and result in enormous pressure on the functioning of the gut, stomach, digestion, and stomach acid levels, etc. Such excessive pressure can adversely affect digestive processes and eventually trigger physical symptoms of sickness like vomiting, nausea, etc.
- Fluctuations in cortisol levels caused by excessive anxiety, stress, and the flight or fight response can result in physical symptoms of illness like rapid breathing, increased heart rate, dizziness, breathlessness, nausea, headache, and muscle tension, etc.
- The immune system helps fight pathogens on a daily basis. Over a period of time, stress and anxiety can adversely affect the immune system and weaken its ability to fight off germs. This can result in actual cases of mild illnesses like common colds, flu, etc., and not just feelings or symptoms of being sick.
2. Chronic anxiety
- Situational anxiety and other kinds of anxiety in the long term can result in chronic anxiety, wherein the anxiety sufferer is in a constant state of worry and anxiety. Chronic anxiety is often indicative of the presence of an anxiety disorder.
- People with chronic anxiety are fearful of becoming sick or feeling sick, which increases their anxiety and stress levels, thereby causing them to feel sick as well as increasing their anxiety levels. It then often becomes a vicious circle; it can be exhausting and sap all of your energy away.
- Chronic anxiety causes cortisol hormone imbalances, thereby affecting the body’s ability to metabolize sugar, protein, fat, and carbohydrates. This can cause your weight to fluctuate, i.e., chronic anxiety sufferers may keep losing or gaining weight.
In turn, anxiety can bring about sick feelings and if the cycle of thinking, believing, saying, imagining etc continues these sick feelings can hang around further depleting the immune system. CBT and NLP has been consistently proven to be the go-to for full recovery from anxiety and other mental/emotional challenges, thereby ending the cycle of thinking, imagining the worst, and the feeling states that result.
Still can’t get a grip on it personally. I’ve been in a nasty stretch, lightheaded, dizzy, nauseous, feeling faint, headache, short of breath, daily. I can understand the effects during a panic attack, but geez! I wake up this way and it goes until I pass out….rinse and repeat. So far working on a 2 week stretch. I am telling myself it’s anxiEtsy and trying not to be concerned. But let’s be real, I feel like dog shit, I feel like something is wrong or off, and I’m just supposed to swallow the it’s just anxiety pill. I’ve dealt with this for years and it can last months with daily garbage. Sucks is all I can say!
Hi James
You just described my life… totally agree it sucks!!!
Constant worry and anxiety just can’t get a handle on it… been like this in and off for years hate it!!!
Deb
Jsmes im in the same boat. Been tested for everything…all clear. Unfortunately it is the anxiety…years and years of chronic stress and anxiett has lead us to be here. It sounds crazy that our dizziness, lightheadedness, nausea, blurry vision headaches and the lidt goes on and on could be it but it is. Even thogh i feel like complete shit i try and tell myself i am healthy and it will pass…hard as f*@$ but i truly believe that eventually it will go away once our bodies are now trained to handle it and think differently…good luck to us all🤞
Thanks for sharing Christina. ❤️
I’m with you, James. Same problems daily, for months at a time.
I have body tension everyday, maybe one day every once in a while I will have one whole day feeling NORMAL then the next day back to the body tension…… I have tried everything I exercise meditate body muscle relatation , have massages let thoughts just go in and out etc…… ??????
Might be time to work with an NLP specialist in my opinion to alter the pictures you unconsciously create about the day ahead. Many times the feelings can be unexplainable and the roots of those feelings get lodged deep within us, and cleaning them out is key.
Hi Dennis. Currently my fight or flight response is stuck on. Been for about a month. Are there foods I can eat as an emergency protocol like leafy greens and b vitamins as sort of a cortisol intervention of some kind? Thanks so much.
-ashli
The video link below will suggest the best supplements for anxiety. Finding the foods online that contain these vitamins and minerals will help with your progress: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNAGLswKvPo
I have been having gi issues since March. I know it all stems from my anxiety. I have suffered from anxiety most of my life, and the effects of it are now starting to wear me down. I break the cycle, then it comes back and the cycle begins all over again.
I understand the pain very well. CBT helped me greatly, this program will help: https://theanxietyguy.com/my-program/ ❤️
How is this program laid out? I recently came upon your YouTube videos and looked at your website. I saw the program but not many details as to what’s in it. I have done a downloadable program on anxiety before and how it was laid out was not user friendly Thanks
Hi Joanne. The program is laid out between mp3 audios and Ebooks and has a How the program works manual to follow upon starting. It’s a 40 min daily discipline that is fully downloadable and focusss on altering the ways of thinking and behaving that promote high levels of anxiety in a persons life. If you need more information please message me through the contact page.
I know the feeling of the cycle…you feel better then it starts again..😘
You often mention panic and physical sensations but what about those who suffer ongoing background symptoms and no clear cut panic…in my case a more or less contant feeling of head pressure. Exposure can’t work in this case because you can’t escape your body and I’m exposed to the feel pretty much non stop. Thoughts..thnx
Every somatic sensation is a signal whether it’s fleeting or lingering Mac. Since the physical body is a reflection of what’s unresolved in the emotional body that’s where we must look to see our sensations subside and become someone new.