Twitching wont go away

[Rickk90]

Its been several days now that i have muscle twitches.
My legs, arms and chest often have these weird spasms which i can see at times. Almost looks like a pulse. Are any of you guy familiar with this?
And hope its not neuromuscular disease

[oneSimpleDude]

I was diagnosed with GAD and had muscle twitches. I thought of the same thing (neuromuscular disease) and was sent to Neurologist. After running brain MRI, EEG and other examinations, I was told I have GAD and was prescribed Lexapro.

So, in summary, muscle twitches are very common. Chances of neuromuscular disease are are...it could be anxiety or as simple muscle overuse....if you still have doubt please see neurologist.

One of the best remedy for anxiety, stress is breathing exercise. Deep diaphragmatic breathing with no pause between exhalation and inhalation quiets mind pretty quickly. It helped me a lot.

[Cobra]

I read a book called waking the tiger by Peter Levine. In it he described how animals, when alerted to danger, become vigilant like we do with anxiety, but when they see there is no danger, their bodies shiver all over and then they return to normal. That is how it's supposed to work. It's the nervous system resetting and the muscles burning off the fear chemicals. He says we shouldn't try to stop the twitches and shaking, just let them happen, otherwise all of those chemicals stay in the body. When we fight the effects of anxiety, we are going against our biology and making it worse.

I decided to see if this was true, so when I had an anxiety attack the other night, I just let myself shake. Toward the end, it was almost like I was having a frickin seizure, I had so much adrenaline built up, but it did seem to help. I haven't even took my anxiety medicine today, and I feel much more at ease. Not completely normal, but better.

He said if your legs feel like kicking, kick them. If you feel like flapping your arms, flap them around. We get in this predicament because we are repressing the natural stress process and not resetting our nervous system like animals do.

[Cobra]

He also said you'll know you reset if you break out into a warm sweat and feel a rush of euphoria. Very interesting book. Not a lot of advice on how to cure anxiety besides just going with it and getting in touch with your body, but knowing how and why we get anxiety attacks helps. And it makes sense. We do repress a lot of our animal instincts to fit into society. After all, we can't very well howl and jump and beat our fists on our chests when we are upset. We just swallow down our feelings and go on our way. But all those hormones and the energy is still there, simmering beneath the surface.

[Rickk90]

He also said you'll know you reset if you break out into a warm sweat and feel a rush of euphoria. Very interesting book. Not a lot of advice on how to cure anxiety besides just going with it and getting in touch with your body, but knowing how and why we get anxiety attacks helps. And it makes sense. We do repress a lot of our animal instincts to fit into society. After all, we can't very well howl and jump and beat our fists on our chests when we are upset. We just swallow down our feelings and go on our way. But all those hormones and the energy is still there, simmering beneath the surface.

That book sounds really interesting to be honest
And you're always helpful ..
What meds are you taking ?

[Cobra]

I was completely off them for a while, but relapsed pretty bad. I just take half an Ativan if I am too tired to deal with it anymore, otherwise I try to take nothing at all. I don't like taking meds, because they only cover up the problem.

The book made a lot of sense, because we are animals. The fear response is in the reptile part of our brains, which is the part that we can't really control. The conflict is where we try to deny or repress its urges. We sit quietly in class or at work when we just want to run and hide or beat someone's face in. We try to repress the physical effects of anxiety instead of shaking and panting and throwing a chair through a window.

I've been experimenting with visualization to relieve the anxiety. You know, our brain doesn't really make a difference between our actions and things we intensely imagine. It's how why can go into a panic attack just worrying about a pain, or we think about heart attacks and start having chest pains. So when I get that scared feeling, I visualize attacking it. I tend to have aggressive impulses when I am scared. In real life, I would never act on them. I am very... Um, reserved, I guess you would say. But there is that reptile part of my brain that needs to vent its fear and aggression. So I just shut my eyes and visualize beating the holy bejesus out of mr. Panic attack. I picture it as vividly as I can. Or I imagine screaming my head off, or destroying things. I always felt ashamed having thoughts like that, or frightened of them, so I would resist my anger or fear, but I have to do something to get rid of this nervous energy.

[Cobra]

Do an experiment, Rick, and try shaking your arms and legs vigorously. Whatever parts are trembling. Just go nuts for a few minutes. Let me know if that helps calm the involuntary twitches. Also, do some visualizations of just going hulk smash. Do you repress anger and fear, too? I wonder if that is common to all of us?

[Rickk90]

Do an experiment, Rick, and try shaking your arms and legs vigorously. Whatever parts are trembling. Just go nuts for a few minutes. Let me know if that helps calm the involuntary twitches. Also, do some visualizations of just going hulk smash. Do you repress anger and fear, too? I wonder if that is common to all of us?

I'm going to try it out right now (:
Ill let you guys know if it helps.
And yeah I do