Can Anxiety Cause Chest Pain?

You feel anxious and your chest feels tight. You start to worry even more than something is seriously wrong with you. After all, can anxiety cause chest pain? Or is something more sinister occurring?

When you feel stressed or anxious, your chest can feel tight and heavy. Chest pain can be a worrying symptom, it feels like something could be wrong with your heart. You may have called the NHS or even sought an ambulance because of how uncomfortable and worrying it feels. Especially when it first happens, you may have thought you were having a heart attack. Many clients I work with have been to hospital and their GP repeatedly and had all sorts of tests about their chest pain that all come back clear.

Chest pain can be a worrying symptom, especially when you are unclear what is happening and why. Yet for many people I work with, anxiety itself can be the cause of their chest discomfort.

Can anxiety cause chest pain? Yes, it can. So lets explore how anxiety can lead to chest pain, why it happens and what you can do to calm both your body and mind when those sensations arise.

 

The Link Between Anxiety and Chest Pain

When you feel anxious, your body prepares for you to deal with the threat. Your natural fight or flight response is activated. Adrenaline, oxygen and stress hormones flood your system in readiness for quickly responding to the perceived threat and danger. Your breathing becomes faster and shallower, your heart rate increases and blood and energy is sent to your muscles.

Your body gets you ready to deal with the threat and danger. You are ready for action and exercise. It’s a built in survival response that we all have.  When we all lived in caves, threats were going to kill or harm us. We had to be able to respond quickly. Time has moved on yet we still have this response to danger. Useful if you are in a dangerous situation, much less helpful where it fires off too much and too often. In these modern times, most of the threats lurk within our own thinking and perception. These negative, worst case scenarios continue to worry and stress you.

All of the physical changes caused by anxiety and completely normal, short term responses. But when anxiety is frequent or intense, it creates uncomfortable sensations such as tightness, pressure and pain in your chest.

Common anxiety related chest sensations can include a tightness or feeling of constriction, sharp or stabbing pains that come and go, or a heavy, aching feeling in the chest. Sometimes it may feel like you are short of breath or a sense that you can’t take a full breath.

Understandably, these sensations increase your worry and anxiety. This can then make the symptoms feel even more unpleasant, intense and uncomfortable. It can quickly become a cycle of worry and physical discomfort.

Of course, as an important note, you should always get chest pain checked by a medical professional. Once any medical causes have been ruled out, and if anxiety is causing these sensations, then there are effective ways to calm them.

 

Calming Chest Pain Linked To Anxiety

Anxiety has three main components. There are all the negative thinking patterns where you imagine the worst. There are the behaviours of anxiety, the most common of which is avoidance. And there are all the uncomfortable physical sensations.

Your muscles tense up, your breathing rate increases and your heart beats faster. The extra tension in the chest muscles, combined with shallow breathing and increased awareness of bodily sensations, can all contribute to the feeling of chest pain or tightness.

The more you focus on those feelings and worry what they might mean, the more your anxiety increases. And the stronger the sensations become.

However, knowing what is happening, you can take steps to break the cycle and ease both your anxiety, and the chest discomfort that comes with it.

Here are three ways to help ease chest pain from anxiety:

 

1. Practice Controlled Breathing

When you feel anxious, you breathe shallower and faster. This in itself can create a sense of tightness in your chest. Slow, steady breathing helps calm anxiety and reduce the physical stress response. You breathe out longer than in and this fires off your natural relaxation response.

As you relax, your breathing can get deeper and shallower and this helps your body relax. This in turn eases chest tightness. Try breathing in for a count of four, holding for a count of two and then gently breathing out for a count of six. This helps your body return to a sense of calm and reduces tightness in the chest.

There’s more about this here: Controlled Breathing To Calm Anxious Feelings

 

2. Relax Your Body

When you feel tense, consciously relax your shoulders, chest and stomach muscles. Try a few gentle stretches to release that built up tension. Alternatively, go for a brisk walk and give the physical sensation an outlet through using your muscles. Or, as a further option, you can start practising guided relaxation, for example, through using one of my hypnosis downloads

 

3. Challenge Anxious Thoughts

When you feel anxiety related chest pain or tightness, remind yourself that what you are feeling is a common anxiety symptom. You are medically safe and it will calm down. The more you reassure yourself the less fuel the sensations have to keep the cycle of anxiety going.

There are many methods for challenging anxious thoughts in the articles on this website, or you may wish to check out the grounding techniques in this article: Grounding Techniques for Anxiety

 

Getting Help To Ease Anxiety and Physical Symptoms

If anxiety related symptoms like chest pain are affecting your life, hypnotherapy can help you calm your mind, reduce physical tension and regain a sense of control.

Through hypnotherapy, my clients learn how to calm anxious feelings and reduce anxious thoughts. You start feeling more calm, confident and in control. And you learn how to manage your own mindset to keep things there no matter what future challenges may come your way.

Yes, anxiety can cause chest pain. And while it can feel alarming, it’s just a sign that your body is reacting to worry, stress and anxiety. With the right support and techniques, you can reduce anxiety, ease physical symptoms and start feeling calmer and happier.

Book your free consultation to learn more, or find out about how I help people overcome anxiety here: Anxiety Hypnotherapy

To your health and happiness,

Dan Regan

Anxiety Hypnotherapy in Ely and Newmarket

 

Find out more about anxiety hypnotherapy in Ely and Newmarket: Anxiety Hypnotherapy

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