Diseases

Chest pain due to anxiety

When a person is under an anxiety crisis, they may feel different symptoms such as a choking sensation or loss of control of their own body. In addition, there are people who also experience chest pain due to anxiety.

Chest pain due to anxiety

Patients who suffer say it is really agonizing, like a sense of death. In truth, chest pain from anxiety is really annoying. Before focusing on this pain, it is important to know a little more about the cause that triggers it: anxiety.

What is anxiety?

Chest pain due to anxiety

All people, to a greater or lesser extent, experience episodes of anxiety. It is a state that is part of the adaptive responses of the body.

Anxiety is basically a defensive mechanism. It is an alert system for situations that are threatening to the patient. Anxiety is universal, it occurs in all people. It is a normal and adaptive mechanism that improves performance, anticipation and response capacity.

The function of anxiety is to mobilize the body, keep it alert and willing to intervene in the face of risks and threats, so that its consequences do not occur or are minimized.

However, in some cases, this mechanism works altered, that is, it causes health problems. Instead of helping us, it incapacitates us. People who have this mechanism altered have any of these predisposing factors to anxiety:

  • Biological factors, especially genetic.
  • Personality traits: as patterns of coping with stress.
  • Environmental factors.

Agoraphobia

People who suffer from it fear places and situations that can cause panic or generate feelings of being trapped, helpless or ashamed. Therefore, avoid this type of space.

Generalized anxiety disorder

It is characterized by a feeling of anxiety and persistent and excessive worry about activities or events, even common routine matters.

The concern is disproportionate with respect to the current situation, it is difficult to control and it affects the way you feel physically. Often, it is triggered along with other anxiety disorders or depression.

Panic disorder

Chest pain due to anxiety

People suffering from panic disorder feel sudden and uncontrollable anxiety and fear.

It involves repeated episodes of sudden sensations of intense anxiety and fear that reach a maximum level in minutes. These episodes are what are known as panic attacks. Some consequences are:

  • Feeling of an impending catastrophe.
  • Difficulty breathing.
  • Chest pain due to anxiety.
  • Elevation of heart rate or palpitations.

These panic attacks can cause the person to worry that they happen again or to avoid situations in which they have happened.

Symptoms of chest pain due to anxiety

As we have seen, chest pain due to anxiety refers to the sensation of pain generated by the somatization of an anxious state. It is not necessary that a crisis is triggered. Chest pain due to anxiety can be caused by the perception of continued stress.

People who have suffered have had any of the following symptoms:

  • Hyperventilation
  • Numbness of the limbs.
  • Loss of control of the body.
  • Feeling of dying.

In addition, it is characterized by being acute and intermittent in the form of punctures. However, this type of discomfort usually disappears in a short time. Sometimes it disappears 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 it?

Chest pain due to anxiety

To relieve chest pain due to anxiety it is essential to seek an effective treatment against the anxiety states that trigger it.

As chest pain due to anxiety is a consequence, as the name implies, of another problem, treatment has to focus on the triggering cause, anxiety.

It is usually necessary to analyze what external and internal factors are caused or favored by episodes of anxiety so marked to work on them.

Also often recommended relaxation exercises that take into account, especially, breathing. Similarly, muscle relaxation techniques are useful. If necessary, the doctor will prescribe anxiolytic dru.

When this type of problem becomes so serious, we recommend that the patient goes to a professional for professional treatment and advice.