Sick with anxiety – literally

Doctors frequently see patients who complain of feeling sick but who are unaware that their symptoms are in fact caused by anxiety. Common anxiety-related symptoms, for example, are nausea, upset stomach and acid reflux. Many of the anxiety sufferers I see also suffer from Irritable bowel syndrome, involving constipation or diarrhoea, abdominal pain and cramps.

The reason why you get such symptoms – as if being chronically anxious weren’t enough to deal with! – is because you’ve got a whole lot of nerves in your stomach that communicate with your brain. So when you’re stressed or anxious, your brain sends messages to your stomach telling it something is wrong.

It’s also thought that all the extra adrenaline flowing around your body causes hormonal changes and upsets the digestive tract.

And of course, it’s a vicious circle – you feel anxious and then your stomach gets upset; but the way you then feel physically, feeds the anxiety – now there’s even more to worry about: why do you feel so sick? Could it be stomach flu or worse, cancer? I feel so bad, will I collapse and not be able to work?

I’m explaining all of this to highlight the importance for anxiety sufferers of practising self-soothing techniques that calm your body as well as your mind. It’s crucial.  Because the cyclical nature of anxiety and its symptoms also work the other way – if you feel better physically, you will feel less anxious.

The number one way you can do this? BREATHE. Please bear with me and don’t dismiss this if you have perhaps heard this advice before. Perhaps you think it’s too simple, or somehow just not enough. I understand – I’ve been there, and I would probably have preferred to be offered some kind of complicated formula. But trust me, while there are lots of other things that can help, breathing properly is the one skill that’s vital to master.

I’ll post separately about breathing and other self-soothing techniques next.