The main anxiety symptoms are:

Chest pain, feeling of choking, palpitation, tremors, shortness of breath, rigidity, waves of heat or cold, abundant sweating and cold, intensified reflexes (hyper vigilance), tingling of the hands and feet, feeling of imminent death or madness, dizziness, vertigo, instability, weakness, feeling faint, sense of loss of control, difficulties in linear thinking and logical.

When you suffer from anxiety attacks there are several events that occur at the physical level in our body. The main physical symptoms of anxiety disorders are:

Nervousness and chemical effects

Cardiovascular Effects

Respiratory effects

Other effects

Nervousness and Chemical Effects

When we are confronted with the fear the brain sends signals to the nervous system. It is the system that is responsible for preparing the body for action and also calms the body and restores balance. To implement these two vital functions the autonomic nervous system has two sections, the sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system.

The sympathetic nervous system is one that we know better because it is what prepares our body for action and activates the system attack-escape, while the parasympathetic nervous system is one that we love because it serves to restore our system and return the body to normal.

When one of these systems is activated they stimulate the whole body and it has an effect all or nothing. This explains why when an anxiety attack occurs; people have various sensations through the body.

The sympathetic system is responsible for releasing adrenaline from adrenal glands. These glands are located above the kidneys. The glandular adrenals also release adrenaline which acts as a chemical messenger for the body to be 100%. When a panic attack begins you can not turn off the system attack-escape as quickly as it was fired. There is always a period with increased anxiety and continues as these signals travel through the body causing the anxiety symptoms.

After a while the parasympathetic nervous system is triggered. Its role is to return the body to its normal operation after the imminent danger to disappear. The parasympathetic nervous system is the part we like most because it returns us to relaxation and normality balancing the anxiety symptoms.

When we use a technique we learned to relieve anxiety, relaxation techniques for example, we actually encourage the parasympathetic system into action. One good thing of which we have to remember is that this system will go into action sooner or later, whether we try or not. The body doesn’t continue in a spiral of increasingly intense anxiety. There comes a point where the anxiety attack and the body are relaxed. This is one of several systems that have integrated into the body to survive.

Even if you worry and stress a lot to keep the sympathetic nervous system to work, it will eventually stop. Over time he becomes smarter than us and realizes that in reality there is no danger. Our body is extremely smart – modern science is always discovering new patterns of intelligence that run by the cells of our body. Our body seems to have a multitude of ways to deal with a very complicated set of functions we take for granted. The main purpose of our organization is to live well and health for as long as possible.

Not convinced?

Try to stop breathing for as long as possible. No matter how strong is your mind, you can never defeat the will of the body. This is good news – no matter if you try to convince yourself that you will die from anxiety disorders, you will not die because of it. Your body will get over the fear and look for a steady state. No one ever died from anxiety attacks.

Remember this the next time you have an anxiety attack. Your mind can prolong the feelings of panic attack for some time, but eventually everything will return to equilibrium. The balance (homeostasis) is what the body always tries to achieve.

The interference to your body is more than an exercise of its feelings. Our body does not go into alarm with these symptoms. The body knows its capabilities. It is our conscious that panics, gets scared and exaggerates it with fear and terror! Our body knows the best anxiety treatment. We tend to expect the worst and exaggerate our feelings. A fast heart beat is a heart attack. A mind too active is almost schizophrenic. Is it your fault? Not really – we’re simply making diagnoses with misinformation.

Cardiovascular Effects

One of the anxiety symptoms is the activity in the sympathetic nervous system increases heart rate, accelerates the circulation throughout the body, ensures that all areas important to the fight-flight reflex are ready. This happens to prepare the body for action.

The fascinating fight-flight reflex is the mechanism that sends the blood where it is not necessary (through the contraction of blood vessels) to the places where it’s needed, muscles of the arms, legs and trunk.

For example, if there is a physical attack the blood comes from the skin, fingers, toes and moves together with the active areas of the legs and arm muscles.

That is why many people feel a lack of sensitivity and tingling during a panic attack that are misinterpreted as a health risk, as the beginning of a heart attack. It is interesting that people who suffer from anxiety disorders often think they have heart problems. If you have even that concern you should consult your doctor to check everything.

Respiratory Effects

One of the anxiety symptoms that cause more fear is shortness of breath and rapid breathing. It is very common during an anxiety attack that the person feels tightness in the chest and throat. I think we all have the fear of losing control of our breathing. From my personal experience I know that anxiety increases because of fear that we stop breathing. Can anxiety disorders cause a respiratory arrest? No.

Panic attacks are associated with an increased respiratory rate and the amount of air breathed. This is of obvious importance to the defence of the body since the tissues need more oxygen to prepare for action. What we feel when breathing increases may include shortness of breath, hyper ventilation, sensations of breathlessness and even chest pains and shaking. The real problem is that these sensations are alien to us and not look natural.

An important side effect of breathing faster (especially when there is no physical activity) is that the amount of blood that goes to the head decreases. While this decline in circulation for blood is not dangerous, it produces a variety of unpleasant symptoms but do not do any harm. These include dizziness, blurred vision, confusion, feeling of unreality and cold sweats.

Anxiety Symptoms Physical Effects

There are other effects produced by activation of the sympathetic nervous system, none of which are bad. The pupils dilate to let more light, which can result in blurred vision and “seeing stars”, etc.. There is a decrease in salivation, resulting in dry mouth. There is a decreased activity in the digestive system, which often gives nausea, a heavy feeling in my stomach and even constipation. Finally, when the various muscle groups tense up in preparation for the fight-flight this can result in various sensations of intention, sometimes turning into pain and tremors.

In general the mechanism of fight-flight activates the entire body metabolism. That is why the anxiety symptoms happen. Like feel heat and sweating because this process uses lots of energy and then the person feels tired and exhausted.

Anxiety Symptoms Mental Effects

The purpose of the mechanism of fight-flight is to warn people of potential danger that may be present. So when it activates the priority of mental search around for potential threats. This reaction is programmed deep inside and it is almost impossible to ignore. It’s hard to concentrate on something, because the mind is trained to look for all potential threats and not give up until the threat is identified.

When the anxiety attack comes, many people look for the quickest exit and leave the queue at the bank and go out. Sometimes anxiety can increase if we leave the impression that we’ll cause some kind of social embarrassment.

If you have a panic attack at work but think you should continue with the task you are doing, it is normal you have great difficulty concentrating. It is very common to become agitated and a general discomfort with this situation.

Many people with whom I worked and suffered anxiety attacks over the years indicated to me that the artificial light – like that which comes from computer screens and televisions – can often begin or worsen an anxiety attack, particularly if the person is tired.

When you have a panic attack and can’t find any external threat, your mind begins to look into possible illness the body or mind might be suffering. This includes thinking you ate something bad for lunch, to whether it be having a cardiac arrest.

The important question is: Why is the fight-flight mechanism is activated during an anxiety attack if there is nothing to frighten you?

After further investigation it appears that we are afraid of these feelings – we are afraid of losing control of our body. These unexpected physical anxiety symptoms create a fear or panic as if something was very wrong. Why feel the physical symptoms of fight-flight mechanism when not afraid?

There are many ways these symptoms manifest themselves not just through fear. It may be that you have much stress in your life and this stress results in increased production of adrenaline and other chemicals that occasionally produce these symptoms. Keep always in mind that anxiety treatments are available for you.

This increased adrenaline can be maintained chemically in the body even after the stress has disappeared. Another possibility is your diet, which directly affects our stress levels. Excess caffeine, alcohol and sugar are known to increase stress in the body and jeopardize your anxiety treatment.

Unresolved emotions are often pointed to a possible catalyst of anxiety attacks, but it is important to say that there is no need to analyze your psyche and get into your sub conscious to resolve anxiety disorders.