5 Physical Symptoms of Anxiety That May Surprise You (And 5 Ways to Ease Them)

by Michelle Faler

Important Note: I’m not a medical professional. I’m just a person with Generalized Anxiety Disorder sharing my experiences. The symptoms I describe may be caused by medical issues other than anxiety. It’s crucial to see your doctor for a proper diagnosis.

You can’t sleep, you can’t eat…Your throat is tight, you can’t breathe…Your heart beats in double time…

These are lyrics from Robert Palmer’s classic 80s hit “Addicted to Love.” They also describe physical symptoms of anxiety.

Mental illnesses like anxiety disorders have significant physical effects. Our physical and mental health are connected like links on an unbreakable chain.

Helpful general and mental health websites explain common physical symptoms of anxiety. Bright and brave writers on The Mighty have shared how anxiety affects their bodies.

My Generalized Anxiety Disorder messes with my body in ways most don’t talk about. I’m sharing my symptoms to help people feel less alone and weird about how they experience anxiety.

1. Pins and Needles in Feet

After a traumatic loss a few years ago, my anxiety was so severe it interrupted my life. Its physical symptoms became unbearable.

My feet were often cold and tingled. It’s like they were always asleep while hundreds of microscopic swords stabbed at my soles.

I couldn’t sleep at night because of this insufferable tingling. I’d get so frustrated I’d slam my feet into my mattress. I somehow assumed I could beat that awkward feeling right out through my toes. (It didn’t work.)

If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought I had diabetes or neuropathy. These diseases can cause tingling and numbness in the feet and other body parts.

But I don’t have either of those conditions. My doctors told me there were no serious medical reasons for my irritating foot tingle. I know my anxiety causes the pins-and-needles sensation because it goes away when I calm down.

Anxiety often makes people breathe quicker or hyperventilate. According to Calm Clinic, taking in too much air may cause body tingling.

2. A Strange, Nauseous Cough

My Generalized Anxiety Disorder often causes stomach cramps. They’re so bad it’s like I’m taking cannonballs in the gut like Homer Simpson did as part of the Hullabalooza Festival.

I get so nauseous I feel like I was on a 24-hour bender without having a drop to drink. While nausea is a common symptom of anxiety, it causes a weird reaction in my body.

When anxiety brews in my belly, I let out this loud, hacking cough. People assume I have a cold or infection when I do this. But I cough like this a lot even when I’m not sick.

Some close to me recognize this noisy, nauseous cough for what it is. When my mom hears it, she knows my anxiety is at maximum levels.

I’ve always wondered about this odd cough. I hacked in front of my therapist during a rough session. My anxiety was so intense I almost spewed out the few sips of green tea in my tummy.

I apologized for my distracting cough, but my therapist understood why I was doing it. She said extreme anxiety makes my stomach upset, and coughing is my body’s way of dealing with it. As she calmed me down, the cough went away.

3. Uncomfortable Waves of Sensation

When anxiety overwhelms me, these waves of uncomfortable sensations wash over my body. If a wave of calm is like a gentle, bright blue wave from the Caribbean Sea, these are like surges of raw sewage. Or they’re like torrents of that pink slime from Ghostbusters II that thrives off negative emotions.

These intolerable feelings form at the pit of my stomach, intensify at my neck, and flow out the top of my head. They will rush through and crash over my body many times, depending on how anxious I am.

Sometimes these strange sensations jump around my body. After the tragedy I talked about earlier, they moved throughout my upper body. It felt like a tiny swarm of bugs was always flying and buzzing by my neck and head to bite at me.

My nurse practitioner told me my extreme emotions were causing these sensations. My heartbreaking loss had turned my anxiety up to eleven.

4. A Metallic Taste

Those odd and obnoxious flowing sensations are often accompanied by another strange symptom. When my anxiety is at its peak, this disgusting metallic taste fills my mouth.

It’s like someone took a bunch of dirty-as-hell pennies and shoved them into my mouth. I’m talking about the nasty pennies that you’d find at the bottom of the purse you haven’t cleaned out in a year. Or the ones glued to your car’s cupholder with soda syrup.

This symptom isn’t just gross; it’s also puzzling. How could anxiety make me feel like I have a mouthful of metal?

Well, there may be an answer. According to Healthline, not only can anxiety create a metallic taste, it even has a name: dysgeusia. While experts don’t know the exact cause, they think a dry mouth is the primary culprit. People with anxiety disorders have more desert-esque mouths than most.

5. Intense, Terrifying Nightmares

Insomnia often plagues people with anxiety. The tornados of spinning thoughts in my brain keep me up at night. When I fall asleep, I sometimes have these horrifying nightmares that jolt me out of my slumber.

These aren’t your ordinary nightmares. They’re scarier than the most frightening horror films of all time. The monsters in them make Romero’s zombies or Alien’s face-huggers look like cute creatures from Pixar.

I wake up in a paralyzing panic. My heart pumps so hard it convinces me I’m having a heart attack. One night, I almost called my mom to ask her to drive me to the hospital.

In about 30 seconds, my voice of reason wakes up with the rest of me. It tells me I’m not dying. It’s just anxiety wrecking my night as usual. While my heart rate slows and my brain calms, I struggle to sleep. It can take me an hour or more to fall back asleep after one of these nighttime freakouts.

These physical symptoms of my Generalized Anxiety Disorder range from irritating to terrifying. After going to therapy and doing research, I found some effective ways to ease them.

1. Doing a Muscle Relaxation Exercise

My therapist walked me through a muscle relaxation exercise in one of our sessions. It caused a wave of calm to flow through my body.

Below are the steps for this exercise:

1. Sit back in your seat and get comfortable.
2. Close your eyes and breathe deep.
3. Tighten and release your face muscles. Then do the same with your neck. You can also rotate your neck.
4. Clench the muscles in your upper back by your shoulders and release them. Do this a few times.
5. Shift your focus to your hands. Make fists and loosen them.
6. Now you’re down to your lower back and glutes. Tighten and release those muscles.
7. Your feet are last. Push your heels into the floor with your toes up. Squeeze your toes closed and open them.

When I do this exercise, it’s like I’m pushing an enormous boulder off of me. It flushes all the tension and uncomfortable sensations out of my body through my toes.

2. Drinking Tea

The closest thing I’ve found to an elixir for my anxiety is tea. Tea both calms my mind and soothes my upset tummy. When my nausea goes away, that strange, hacking cough vanishes too.

Drinking a hot cup of tea also washes that yucky metallic taste out of my mouth.

Many teas can improve both physical and mental health. These are the two types I drink the most:

Green Tea

Green tea may fight the harmful effects of stress and anxiety on our bodies. It can also help us reduce fatigue.

I drink green tea during the day. It keeps me motivated and calms my anxiety.

Chamomile Tea

Chamomile tea may increase our serotonin, which makes us feel happier. It can also ease muscle tension. So it’s perfect for soothing many of these physical anxiety symptoms.

I drink Chamomile before bed. Along with serotonin, this tea increases our melatonin, which controls our sleep. Since I have trouble shutting my brain off at night, I’m grateful to have something that helps me get some shut-eye.

3. Discussing the Symptoms with a Trusted Person

When I tell people I trust about my physical anxiety symptoms, they fade away. Well, they do most of the time.

During our sessions, my therapist would do a body check-in with me every 15 minutes. I’d describe every uncomfortable feeling from head to toe.

She’d explain how anxiety was causing each sensation. Now that I understand these symptoms, I can strip away their power and calm myself.

It’s good to tell someone you trust about your symptoms so they can recognize them and help you.

When I sent my first freelance writing pitch, I was so petrified I froze in my chair. That loud, hacking cough forced its way out of my body.

Since I told my mom about my symptoms, she knows my anxiety is high when she hears that cough. She came by me to help me rationalize my fear. The cough disappeared.

If you don’t want to talk about them, write down your anxiety symptoms. By seeing them on paper, you can better understand and control them.

4. Letting the Sensations Pass Through

Remember in Lord of the Rings when Gandalf shouted, “You shall not pass!” at that fiery monster dude? While it’s one of the most iconic and badass scenes in movie history, do NOT treat anxiety sensations this way.

By fighting those icky feelings, they’ll intensify. It’s better to let them pass through you. I know how scary that seems, but you have to trust me.

Anytime I pushed too hard to overcome my symptoms, they overtook me. It’s best to sit, breathe, and let them pass.

I won’t lie and say it doesn’t suck. A few minutes will seem like an eternity. But you’ll be grateful when your severe sensations last only 3 minutes instead of 30.

5. Putting Down the Phone and Picking up a Book

Too much screen time messes with our sleep. Social media overload can increase stress and keep us awake. I can’t count how many times I read something online that pissed me off. And I’d lay awake with my brain bubbling like a piping hot stew.

When I read a book before bed, I fall asleep faster. If I can’t sleep after reading, I do what my mom suggests: I think about the characters, plot, etc. until I drift off.

The other benefit of books is they don’t give me nightmares. Well, most of the time they don’t. Reading something as scary as The Shining may cause some nighttime fear.

But reading Stephen King novels is better than staring at a phone or TV screen. I had an unhealthy habit of staying up and watching true crime and freaky internet mystery videos on YouTube. No wonder I couldn’t sleep! (Super smart move there, Shell.)

I know everyone isn’t a bookworm like I am. If you’re not a reader, pick up a puzzle book. Doing a Sudoku or crossword puzzle distracts my brain from its worries so they don’t keep me up at night.

How Does Anxiety or Stress Affect Your Body?

Tell me in the comments if you have any of these physical symptoms of anxiety. I’d love to know if anyone else coughs while anxious or nauseous. I don’t know anyone who does that.

How does anxiety or stress affect your body? Do you have symptoms that others don’t seem to talk about?

I want to end by sharing an excellent resource for everything related to anxiety. Calm Clinic has taught me a lot about how Generalized Anxiety Disorder affects my mind and body. Check it out when you get a chance.

Sources

1. Abraham, BSc, Micah “4 Ways to Prevent Pins and Needles From Anxiety.” Calm Clinic, March 1, 2021.

2. Glasofer, Deborah R. PhD “The Physical Symptoms of Anxiety.” Verywell Mind, July 8, 2020.

3. Lloyd, Fairley “7 Ways Anxiety Physically Affects My Body.” The Mighty, February 3, 2021.

4. Raypole, Crystal “Physical Symptoms of Anxiety: How Does It Feel?” Healthline, March 15, 2019.

5. Stanborough, Rebecca Joy “Can Anxiety Cause a Metallic Taste in Your Mouth?” Healthline, December 21, 2020.

6. Star, Katharina “Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) for Anxiety” Verywell Mind, September 16, 2020.

7. “The Eight Best Teas for Stress & Anxiety.” Sips by.

Image Sources

Featured image contains photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash

Photo of tea by Svitlana on Unsplash

Gandalf image from Meme Generator

Photo of book by Vanessa Serpas on Unsplash