Can anxiety make you sick?

Anxiety is commonly associated with its psychological symptoms. These can include feeling worried, nervous, a sense of doom or that something bad will happen, or intense fear. Anxiety can also cause some physical symptoms. These physical symptoms can sometimes be scary, especially if you’re unfamiliar with them.

The physical symptoms of anxiety can include:

• Headache
• Stomach upset
• Nausea
• Diarrhea
• Weakness
• Rapid breathing
• Rapid heart rate
• Shaking
• Muscle pain and tension
• Sweating

In short, if you begin to experience one or more of those physical symptoms of anxiety, you can feel quite physically sick. The stress response cycle or fight-flight response is what creates these physical symptoms for people with anxiety.

When you perceive danger, the body responds by breathing quickly because the body is preparing to send more oxygen to large muscles so that it can fight or flee in order to survive. As this process unfolds, you may feel short of breath. The muscles tense in preparation to fight or run, which can cause tension headaches, and result in body aches and pains. Hormones triggered by the stress response cycle cause the increased heart rate, which is meant to help quickly pump blood to muscles to ready them for action.

If you’re experiencing the physical symptoms mentioned here, you may be understandably concerned. Talking with your doctor about what you’re experiencing can help you rule out the potential for underlying physical conditions. Once your doctor determines that there aren’t underlying medical conditions in play, they may refer you to a therapist or you may choose to seek out a therapist to begin working on managing and healing anxiety. Anxiety is often treated with medication, therapy, or a combination of both.

Therapists and doctors will both commonly recommend a set of lifestyle changes to get you heading in a good direction with managing anxiety and thus the related physical symptoms:

• Reducing or eliminating the use of stimulants like caffeine
• Improving sleep quality
• Getting regular exercise
• Practicing relaxation techniques like meditation, yoga, or mindfulness

Untreated anxiety can impact overall health. Visit with your doctor about your physical symptoms or concerns about anxiety if these symptoms are becoming difficult for you to manage, or are interfering with your ability to fulfil daily responsibilities.