Chest Pain From Anxiety
When a person is undergoing an anxiety attack, they may feel different symptoms such as a feeling of suffocation or loss of control of their own body. In addition, there are people who also experience chest pain from anxiety.
Patients who suffer from it can feel it as something really agonizing, like a feeling of death. And is that chest pain from anxiety can be really annoying. Before we focus on this pain, it is important to know a little more about the cause that triggers it : anxiety.
What is anxiety?
Anxiety is basically a defensive mechanism. It is an alert system for situations that are threatening to the patient. Anxiety is universal: it can occur in everyone. It is a normal and adaptive mechanism that improves performance, anticipation and response.
The function of anxiety is to mobilize the body, keep it alert and ready to intervene in the face of risks and threats, so that their consequences are not produced or minimized.
However, in some cases, this mechanism works in an altered way, that is, it creates anguish. Instead of helping us, it incapacitates us. People who have this altered mechanism present some of these predisposing factors to anxiety:
- Biological factors.
- Personality traits: as stress coping patterns.
- Environmental factors.
On the other hand, it should be mentioned that there are different types of anxiety. Some of them are those mentioned below.
Agoraphobia
People with it fear places and situations that can cause panic or create feelings of being trapped, helpless, or ashamed. Therefore, they avoid these types of spaces.
Generalized anxiety disorder
It is characterized by a feeling of persistent and excessive anxiety and worry about activities or events, even common routine matters.
Worry is disproportionate to the current situation, it is difficult to control, and it affects the way you feel physically. It is often triggered in conjunction with other anxiety disorders or depression.
Panic disorder
It involves repeated episodes of sudden feelings of intense anxiety and fear that peak within minutes. These episodes are what are known as panic attacks. Some symptoms of these attacks can be:
- Feeling of impending catastrophe.
- Difficulty breathing.
- Chest pain from anxiety.
- Elevated heart rate or palpitations.
These panic attacks can cause the person to worry that they will happen again or to avoid situations in which they have happened.
Symptoms of anxiety chest pain
As we have seen, anxiety chest pain refers to the sensation of pain generated by the somatization of an anxious state. It is not necessary that a crisis be triggered. Anxiety chest pain can be caused by the perception of ongoing stress.
People who have suffered from it have presented any of the following symptoms:
- Hyperventilation
- Numbness of the limbs.
- Loss of body control.
- Feeling of dying.
In addition, it is characterized by being sharp and of intermittent appearance, in the form of punctures. However, this type of discomfort usually disappears in a short time. Sometimes it goes away after 15 minutes.
Another characteristic of chest pain due to anxiety is that it does not change when we move. The feeling is the same, whether we move or not.
How can we treat anxiety chest pain?
As anxiety chest pain is a consequence, as the name suggests, of another problem, treatment has to focus on the triggering cause, anxiety.
It is usually necessary to analyze what external and internal factors are causing or favoring such marked anxiety episodes in order to work on them.
Relaxation exercises that take into account, especially, breathing are also usually recommended. In the same way, muscle relaxation techniques are useful. In necessary cases, the doctor can prescribe anxiolytic drugs.
When this type of problem becomes this serious, we recommend that the patient see a professional for professional treatment and advice.
Chest pain from anxiety: see a professional if you are worried
Chest pain due to anxiety generates a series of symptoms that can make the patient who suffers feel that he or she is dying.
It is important to know the causes that trigger anxiety attacks and continuous stress, in order to avoid these types of complications. See a professional to be more in control and learn more about these types of anxiety problems.
