Physical Anxiety Symptoms: Danger Signs?

In today's world, almost every individual complains of stress affecting their life. For some, the cause is financial, and for others, it's medical and yet for others, it's relationships. Whatever the reason for the problem is, people everywhere are complaining of physical anxiety symptoms.

Since stress has become so prevalent in modern times, the physical symptoms of anxiety and stress have also become increasingly common and may often be confused with symptoms that have organic causes or disease. It should also be remembered, that while anxiety and stress are related closely, stress is also the precursor of several medical illnesses, like migraine headaches, gastric ulcers and even heart attacks.

Are you Sick or Over-stressed? Maybe Both.

Some of the physical symptoms of anxiety may also have an organic cause. Frequent urination may
a reaction to stress or a bladder infections. Other symptoms of stress and anxiety that may be due to infection are any type of abdominal discomfort, diarrhea, dizziness, chills, nausea, headaches or muscle tension and aches.

Other stress related symptoms that may also be evidence other medical conditions are fatigue, problems in vision (double vision, blurring). rapid heartbeat / heart palpitations, swallowing difficulty, shortness of breath, hot flashes, dizziness, tightness or pain in chest or dry mouth.

Some symptoms may be hard to pin down to a particular part of the body. For example, you may feel physically shaken; your legs are jelly, your stomach hurts, your muscles do not move as you are telling them to. You may even feel numbness, tingling and chills. Sounds scary? I could be a serious medical condition -- or not. 

More on how to sort this out little later, but first let's discuss the most prevalent cause of the level of stress that leads to symptoms like this. Uh huh. You guessed it. It's "Work".

All Work and No Play...

We will often ignore symptoms are attributed to stress until the condition has become much more severe or critical.  Too much time at work will definitely lead to stress and people affected by this will suffer from visual disturbances, headaches and sore eyes especially where computers are in use. Stress could very well be the cause in this situations but you should not rule out a more straightforward cause that could be accurately diagnosed with a simple eye test. Working for many hours a day in front of the computer or in dim light may impair eyesight due to simple eye strain.

Symptoms you suffer depend on the type of work you do. For example, surgeons, teachers and other professionals who spend hours standing at work, may complain of weakness or a tingling sensation in their legs.

What to Do About It

Let it continue and let that additional worry add to our stress? Sounds absurd, but that is how most people deal with these symptoms, at least in the beginning. Is this a physical anxiety symptom or just tired legs? Instead of just hoping that it will just go away, maybe you should see your doctor. On an even more serious note, chest pain, or the inability to catch your breath could be due to stress, but these may also be the warning signs of heart problems.

A regular check up with the family physician is extremely essential to diagnose the cause of these so called physical anxiety symptoms. A diet lacking in vitamin B12 can often lead to a sensory deficit and therefore the solution is often very straightforward. On the other hand a brain tumor called pheochromocytoma can mimic the palpitations and sweating of physical anxiety symptoms and should be taken into consideration as well.

Other Clues to the Diagnosis of Anxiety

When diagnosing such individuals, a proper history should be taken about the mental status of the individual while experiencing physical anxiety symptoms. People with hard core anxiety problems, often feel scared at this time. They worry about what others will think about them and want to hurry away from where ever they are. Often, such individuals take heavy does of medicines or consume a lot of alcohol to get away from these feelings.

It is also important to remember that often, the trigger to the anxiety is the fear of having a fatal illness. Every physician should keep this is mind while eliminating the medical causes of physical anxiety symptoms, so that the problem is combated, rather than being aggravated.