43. Signs and Symptoms of Anxiety

In this post, I’m going to describe some signs and symptoms of anxiety: physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral. What I’m going to write in this post may seem more than obvious. However, as I’ve only recently realized, someone can struggle with anxiety for years without ever being aware of it. I hope to help give you tools to increase your awareness if this is you, and hopefully encourage you to take steps towards freer living.

I’ve recently realized how much anxiety I’ve struggled with for years. I’ve been diving deeply into old journals for another writing project I’m working on, and I’m discovering that I wrote in nearly every entry how anxious I was feeling about something or other. Re-reading, I can’t believe I didn’t put the pieces together at the time, but I think that’s so common. When you’re chronically anxious, you’re just surviving your day to day. You may be aware that you’re stressed or worried, but you feel like that’s just the way it is. You can’t imagine any other way. You keep pushing forward hoping that things will get better if you just work hard enough, accomplish the right things, unlock the right way of thinking. And time goes on and on without you ever being aware of how much time has passed and you’ve still been feeling the same way. This, at least, has been my experience.

So, if you can read over this list and recognize yourself, that is an amazing step. I hope you can be encouraged and validated by this list and find your way to the help you deserve.

Physical signs and symptoms: Heart racing, chest tightness, muscle tension or soreness (shoulders, back, neck, etc.), headaches, nausea, digestive issues, migraines, trouble sleeping or sleeping restlessly, chronic tiredness, brain fog, shallow breathing or shortness of breath (I developed asthma a few years ago, which may be partly attributed to allergies but I believe there has been a stress component as well), high blood pressure, dizziness, muscle twitching, chronic health or immune issues, lack of appetite or food cravings

Mental/emotional signs and symptoms: Difficulty focusing, always feeling like there is more to do, chronically feeling guilty for things you’ve said or done or guilt for taking down time, replaying conversations over and over in your head, overanalyzing what you said and did, feeling on edge, feeling like something bad is going to happen, irritability, mind going blank

Behavioral signs and symptoms: Avoiding certain people/places/situations that increase anxiety, over-explaining or over-apologizing, difficulty sitting down and resting, restlessness and “always going,” finding ways to be busy all the time, lashing out “for no reason,” over-functioning to make things perfect for others, saying yes to things you don’t really want to in order to please others, overeating or not eating enough, numbing by binge-watching or phone scrolling, avoiding confrontation or picking fights over small things, difficulty getting motivated

As you can see, some symptoms are opposites, yet can still be indicators of anxiety - for example, “avoiding confrontation or picking fights over small things.” This is because everyone is different and responds to stress in different ways, and because everyone’s nervous system becomes activated differently. I will cover this in more depth in another post.

You also may not feel these symptoms all the time, but only in certain situations. That’s perfectly normal. As described in the last post, there are many different types of anxiety. If you struggle more with a generalized anxiety, then you may experience these symptoms most of the time. But if your anxiety is activated by certain triggers, then you’ll probably be able to identify certain situations where you notice these symptoms more than others. This is great self-awareness.

If you recognize yourself and your symptoms on this list, I hope you can be encouraged that you are not alone. That what you are experiencing is normal, that so many people struggle with this too, and that there is hope to feel better. The first step is increasing our own self-awareness, because we can’t solve a problem if we don’t understand what the problem is.

Next post, I will describe a little bit about depression, and some similarities and differences between anxiety and depression. I think this is important to help people recognize one over the other, and be able to articulate what is going on with them. For a long time I’ve thought I struggled more with depression than with anxiety, because depression would manifest itself much more obviously than anxiety would. But I’ve realized that the depression tended to happen when my body and mind were most exhausted because of chronic anxiety.

Read on for more!

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44. Anxiety vs. Depression

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42. Types of Anxiety: Part 2