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Anxiety Research Paper

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Did you know that anxiety affects more than 40 million people over the age of 18 per year? It is the top mental illness in the United States. Anxiety has both physical, and emotional effects that are caused by genetics, brain chemistry, personality, and life events.. Three very common effects are panic, chest pain, and over/under eating.

The first effect: panic is one of the most common effects of anxiety. Anxiety is said to be “characterized by panic attacks—sudden feelings of terror—sometimes striking repeatedly and without warning. Often mistaken for a heart attack, a panic attack causes powerful, physical symptoms including chest pain, heart palpitations, dizziness, shortness of breath and upset stomach” (Anxiety Disorders). Whenever panic …show more content…

“A recent Swedish research links stress and chest pain; in fact it relates chest pain to sedentary lifestyle, stress, depression and anxiety. A chest pain can be one of the many symptoms of stress. stress is caused when our brain perceives a threat, and releases stress hormones into our blood, in preparation for us to "fight or flee". One of the body's automatic reactions in line with this preparation is tightening of muscles the muscles of our chest are no exception to this occurrence. And the part of the brain that receives pain signals from heart and chest are close to each other, causing us to mistake one for another.” (Stress and Chest Pain). While everyones anxiety effects are different I seem to always get chest pain. I get chest pain before the actual attack itself happens. Chest pain feels similar to a very heavy object sitting on your chest. I may also feel claustrophobic as an effect of chest pain. You feel intense pressure and it becomes hard to breathe. Some days the pressure is less than others. There has been nights where I have had chest pain has kept me up for hours because it can become so painful. There was even a time where I sped as fast as one could to the Emergency Room because I thought something was wrong with my heart. Luckily, there was no heart issue. It was stress-related and I was sent

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