Oh,Brzghoff, I forgot to respond to your original post about how anxiety creates other symptoms...i have most of these symptoms and have been anxious that i have something wrong...for example, bladder spasms, that would be irritable bladder..i guess that's caused by anxiety huh? it call comes back to the mind body connection in my opinion.
Can you please post a link to some of your research on this? Much appreciated;o)))
your best resource for lots of the research is fivenotions who works for a grad student. she is doing research for him. the student's doctoral thesis is on anxiety.
while the info is out there, anyone who has experienced anxiety recognizes these symptoms. We also know that we share quite a few of these symptoms with others who suffer anxiety. for example, we know anxiety makes us tense. think about the impact tension has on us, headaches, muscle aches and pain, high BP. anxiety makes us scared, we know shaking is a classic symptom of being scared. think of the classic saying "never let them see you sweat" it shows you are nervous or anxious. as for irritable bladder, i found this link http://www.muschealt...ive_bladder.htm. there are many articles that link anxiety and irritible bowel syndrome, IBS.
here are a few respective to anxiety and physical symptoms http://www.adaa.org/...phobia/symptoms and http://http://panicd...IandAnxiety.htm
the following i learned in high school physiology, college classes in abnormal psychology and childhood psychological disorders, my psychiatrists and therapists.
when we are stressed, our hypothalamus (in the brain) triggers the production of cortisol (a hormone) that is responsible for our fight or flight response. the purpose of that reaction is for self preservation. for example you are threatened by an attacker, an immediate mental stressor. that reaction - initiated by a mental "thought", a perceived threat - causes a physical response by the brain which signals a gland on our kidneys to produce cortisol which initiats that fight or flight - the strength/energy to get away (flight) or "fight" the attacker. often either of those responses are preceeded by a "freeze" - the deer in the headlights response. keep in mind, the initial trigger is a thought - something we tell ourselves. if you perceive something as a threat, your body responds that it IS a threat. however, we rarely need that fight or flight response as did our ancestors and those in the animal kingdom who flee predators higher up on the food chain on a daily basis.
what happens to all that cortisol when we aren't really fighting or fleeing? it wreaks havoc on our bodies. that's what creates belly fat the visceral fat deposited around our major organs. muscle pain, high BP, memory loss and the other symptoms we all know and love are a result of the excess cortisol not being used to run away or beat the heck out of our perpatrator. physical exercise is GREAT for reducing anxiety.
we are still capable of setting up that stress/hypothalamus/cortisol physical reaction that creates the fight or flight response by telling ourselves something is terrible or bad or awful or that we "can't stand". very often we don't recognize we do this and can't figure out why we feel stressed or anxious. when we start the withdrawal process with cymbalta, the serotonin and norepinephrine levels fall since the drug is no longer in our system. our brains aren't managing our cognitive processes as they did when we were on the drug. our brain's ability to supress the reuptake of these neurotransmitters (allowing for higher levels in the brain) will return as the withdrawal diminishes. until then, we have to recognize what is real and what is not. our brains arent firing on all cylinders so to speak so we have to be careful about what we tell ourselves - do we have real evidence that what we tell ourselves is true?
i believe that is when i have become vulnerable to what i tell myself. i get overly sensitive, take things more personally, become irritable, angry and anxious. these are emotions that i develop due to my perception of events - real or imagined. if my husband says something "i think" is disrespectful, i will react - often overreact, getting upset and stressing over the thought that our relationship is falling apart. that would be "awful" and i "couldn't stand it". what i am telling myself is that my relationship is "threatend" - thats the mental trigger, my hypothalamus responds. here comes the cortisol and the anxiety kicks in. the more i react similarly when my husband and i disagree (fight? argue?) the same reaction ocurrs and it soon becomes a "habit". at this point i can develop anxiety and not even realize it or recognize from where it comes. i wake up in the morning and i'm already anxious. really its a habit - the fear of fear. its imperative i challenge what i am telling myself and change my thinking. if my husband and i disagree/fight/argue it does not mean my relationship is coming to an end. it means we are not getting a long and its best if we work on that. if i tell myself i "can't stand it" or i "can't help it' or i "won't get better" - quite simply i won't. so i refuse to tell myself that. i refuse to let the anxiety beat me down. if you think that's a light weight example, maybe i'll tell you about my "the basement walls are cracking, the're going to cave in and we're all doomed" story another time.
by the way, for more on cortisol here are a couple links
http://www.psycholog...blic-enemy-no-1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortisol
these were easy to find. feel free to do your own "googling"
