How Do I know if  I have Anxiety?
 

When Anxiety Feels Like Something Else

 

 

One of the most frightening things about anxiety is that it doesn’t always feel like anxiety. In fact, it can feel alarmingly physical. A racing or pounding heart, tight chest, dizziness, breathlessness, nausea, tingling, shaking, blurred vision or a sudden overwhelming sense that something is terribly wrong can leave people convinced they are having a heart attack, a stroke or some other medical emergency. Many people experiencing their first panic attack end up in hospital or call an ambulance because they genuinely believe their life is in danger.

I often see people who have spent months, sometimes years, moving between GPs, specialists and medical tests trying to find an explanation for symptoms that feel far too physical to be anxiety. They may have been told that everything looks normal, yet they still don’t feel normal — and that can be deeply unsettling. The missing piece is often an understanding of just how powerful the body’s threat response can be. Anxiety is not simply worrying too much or thinking negatively. When the nervous system detects danger, it can change your heart rate, breathing, digestion, muscle tension, balance, vision and perception within seconds. Those physical symptoms of anxiety are real, and because they are real, they can be frightening enough to trigger even more anxiety.

This is how the cycle can take hold: you notice a sensation, fear it means something is wrong, your threat system escalates, and the symptoms become stronger. Before long, you may find yourself monitoring your body, checking your pulse, avoiding exercise, searching symptoms online or repeatedly seeking reassurance. New or unexplained symptoms should always be medically checked, but when tests repeatedly come back clear, it may be worth asking a different question: not “What is wrong with me?” but “Could my nervous system be stuck in a state of threat?”