Sometimes anxiety can show up in your body long before your mind catches on. May be your chest tightens before a meeting, or your stomach knots before you send a difficult email. Perhaps your shoulders are tense all day, but you only notice when a headache appears. These physical sensations can feel confusing, frustrating, or even scary—but they are your body’s way of telling you it’s on high alert. In this fourth post in the Anxiety Series, I want to explore anxiety in the body. This will cover what anxiety looks and feels like in the body, why it happens, and how you can start to respond with care rather than fear.
The Fight-or-Flight Response: Why Your Body Reacts
Anxiety triggers what is commonly known as the “fight-or-flight” response. It’s your body’s built-in alarm system, designed to keep you safe. When it senses a threat—real or imagined—it releases stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. Your heart beats faster, muscles tense, breathing quickens, and your senses become sharper. In the short term, this is actually helpful—it’s what allows us to react quickly in emergencies. But if your body keeps going into high alert without a real threat, it can feel exhausting, and sometimes even frightening.
Common Physical Symptoms of Anxiety
Everyone experiences the physical side of anxiety differently. Some people notice their heart racing or palpitations. Others feel short of breath, dizzy, or even faint. Muscle tension is very common, often in the shoulders, neck, or jaw, which can lead to headaches or general aches throughout the body. Digestive issues can occur too—stomach butterflies, cramps, nausea, or changes in appetite. And the fatigue can be relentless, even when you haven’t done anything physically demanding.
When the Mind Disconnects from the Body
When someone has been experiencing anxiety or an anxiety disorder over a long period, they can become so caught up in their thoughts that they become disconnected from these physical sensations. They may feel mentally overwhelmed, “strung out” or “hyper”. Because they spend so much time on high alert, they may not recognise the signs their body is sending. This disconnection can make anxiety harder to manage, because the body is signalling distress, but the mind isn’t noticing it.
One of the challenges of anxiety symptoms is that they can mimic other health issues. Palpitations can make you worry about your heart. Shortness of breath can feel like asthma. Digestive discomfort may feel like gastric issues. And when these symptoms appear without any clear trigger, it can spiral into more worry—a cycle that keeps the body in “high alert” and the mind in overdrive.
The Role of Cyberchondria in Health Anxiety
This is where cyberchondria can come in. In an attempt to find reassurance, many people search their physical symptoms online. While it may feel like helpful to gain answers, it often increases anxiety. Minor sensations can be misinterpreted as serious illness, which strengthens worry and perpetuates the cycle of anxiety. Understandably, research has shown that those with a history of health anxiety can be more severely impacted by cyberchondria1. Studies also suggest that the impact can differ depending on gender1 and age2.
How Anxiety Affects Sleep and Energy
The physical symptoms of anxiety can have a significant impact on your ability to sleep. Racing thoughts, physical tension, or a heightened state of alertness can make it hard to fall asleep, stay asleep, or feel rested in the morning. Poor sleep, in turn, can intensify anxiety, creating a frustrating cycle that affects both body and mind.
Listening to Your Body with Curiosity, Not Fear
I often encourage people I work with to approach their body with curiosity rather than judgment. Notice the tension, the racing heart, the shallow breathing, and be curious about what your body is telling you. Why are these symptoms present? What has just happened to you? What have you been thinking about? Are there any patterns to when these symptoms show up?
Once you normalise the sensations in the body as anxiety and not as life threatening, they can become clues. They can provide valuable information to give a better understanding of how your body reacts to situations and why these situations are triggering your anxiety.
Practical Ways to Reduce Physical Anxiety Symptoms
Small initiatives can be useful to reduce the physical symptoms of anxiety when they occur.
Small grounding exercises can help—slow, deep breaths, gently rolling your shoulders, stretching your neck, or bringing awareness to your feet on the floor. Even pausing to notice your surroundings—the colours in a room, the sounds you can hear, the feel of your breath—can help bring the nervous system back into balance. If health anxiety is an issue for you, recognising this pattern and approaching online health searches with caution is an important step toward breaking the cycle.
Sometimes these strategies aren’t enough, and that’s OK. If physical anxiety symptoms are persistent, overwhelming, or interfering with daily life, it’s worth reaching out for support. Counselling, therapy, and medical advice can help you learn to manage both the mind and body side of anxiety.
Anxiety Is a Signal, Not a Failure
Remember, anxiety is a signal, not a failure. It’s your body asking you to pause, pay attention, and take care of yourself. By listening to it, responding with kindness, and seeking support when needed, you can start to feel calmer, more grounded, and more in control.
A gentle note: If you’re noticing strong physical anxiety symptoms, even outside of stressful situations, it’s important to check in with a healthcare professional to rule out any underlying medical concerns. Anxiety is common and treatable, and you don’t have to manage it alone.
If you would like to learn more about anxiety, how it affects the brain and the different types of anxiety disorder, you can read the previous parts of the Anxiety Series using the links below.
2: The Science Behind Anxiety.
3: The Different Forms of Anxiety.
1 Sansakorn, P., Mushtaque, I., Awais-E-Yazdan, M., & Dost, M. K. B. (2024). The Relationship between Cyberchondria and Health Anxiety and the Moderating Role of Health Literacy among the Pakistani Public. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 21(9), 1168. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph21091168 [Accessed 02/10/2025]
2 Zeine, R., Mohammed, D., Wilcox, S., Renee, C., Janke, C., Jarrett, N., Evangelopoulos, A., Serrano, C., Tabassum, N., Turner, N., Theodore, M., & Dusic, A. (2019). Cyberchondria: Implications of online behavior and health anxiety as determinants. Archives of Medicine and Health Sciences, 7(2), 154. https://doi.org/10.4103/amhs.amhs_108_19
