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Anxiety Is Physical

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  • #173659
    Stephanie
    Participant

    Hi, looking for some insight, advice or even just commiseration. I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression for 10 years. I’m on Lexapro and Buspirone and take Klonopin occasionally (but prefer not to given withdrawal effects). My anxiety almost always manifests as intense physical symptoms like chronic shortness of breath (can go on for days), hot and burning skin, chest tightness, headaches and muscle aches. The most distressing is the breathing issues. Anyone else experienced this, and found ways to cope/minimize? Thank you. ❤️

    #173733
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Stephanie:

    Yes, anxiety is physical. Everything we experience, our thoughts, our feelings, everything is physical, possible only because we have a brain and the rest of the body.

    What people refer to as “psychological”, or “mental,” as in not physical, is physical, only those things cannot be measured in a physical test like a blood test or an X Ray. Maybe in the future science will make it possible to detect and measure such physical events as that occur when we think and feel anything at all.

    I experience anxiety still, a lifetime of anxiety. Was on psychiatric drugs for 17 years, including Klonipin and got off them all a few years ago. Regarding my breathing I hold my breath, breathing shallowly, but not struggling to breathe, like you described, as I understand it. This very morning, a moment ago, I felt the discomfort of it, that panic surge. I am very familiar with it. There is a way to stop the panicking element in anxiety, that is the fear of the fear itself. The fear of the fear taking over. The escalation of fear can be stopped through practice.

    I hope you post again and I will be glad to reply again, if you’d like.

    anita

     

     

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