Physical anxiety symptoms but no anxiety feeling?

[Blackwoodforest]

Just wondering if anyone else has experienced physical anxiety symptoms not unlike a panic attack, but without actually feeling anxious?

Last night, I was just at my house and with my boyfriend and not in any way in a anxiety-causing situation, and I had episodes that lasted a few minutes at a time for basically the whole evening where I had an extremely tight feeling in my chest and the feeling of not being able to breathe. But it was strange, because I wasn't actually FEELING anxious. Can anyone shed any light on this?

[Kirk]

I think what is happening to you is normal as we can all experience symptoms or sensations without
actually feeling anxious.

[Ragels]

I had a similar experience the other night as well. It was a bit strange, I felt calm and less in pain than I had in several weeks, but eventually started having very strange sensations as if I was having a panic attack but like you said, none of the mental anxiety associated with it. It eventually really freaked me out and I started having pretty bad anxiety and a small panic attack.

[Olives]

The same thing sometimes happens to me too. Sometimes I'm anxious about some event in the future but other times I don't know why it's happening.

[Spartacus1983]

This is what I experience on a daily basis. I went through a two month period of severe anxiety and panic attacks. The past couple of weeks though I haven't really been anxious about anything but my chest and abdomen are very tight still. I take xanax and that helps with the tightness but it bothers me that it happens even when I feel perfectly calm.

[KeepYourCalm]

That's exactly what keeps happening to one of my close friends. He's 28, he's in a very good health and he's never had stress or anxiety problems his entire life. But for some reason for about a year he has been having these random episodes where he has difficulty breathing and he feels this tightness in his neck and his chest. He says he also feels this sudden rush of dread but he has no idea where it's coming from.

The last time this happened he was swimming in a lake and he almost drowned becasue of this.

The weird thing is he had himself examined several times since then and all the tests showed that he was in perfectly good health... So yeah, I'd also be really interested if someone had any idea of what this is.

[Ragels]

That's exactly what keeps happening to one of my close friends. He's 28, he's in a very good health and he's never had stress or anxiety problems his entire life. But for some reason for about a year he has been having these random episodes where he has difficulty breathing and he feels this tightness in his neck and his chest. He says he also feels this sudden rush of dread but he has no idea where it's coming from.

The last time this happened he was swimming in a lake and he almost drowned becasue of this.

The weird thing is he had himself examined several times since then and all the tests showed that he was in perfectly good health... So yeah, I'd also be really interested if someone had any idea of what this is.

I don't think it's necessarily uncommon to have panic attacks without having some sort of anxiety disorder, and it honestly sounds exactly like how I experience panic attacks. It can be a perfectly good, relatively anxiety free day and one thing can just set it off and you might not even realize what it was. Panic attacks are essentially just your brains way of saying it thinks you need a lot of adrenaline right now because you might need it, for whatever reason and sometimes it can just set that off for no good reason, even in otherwise perfectly healthy people.

[matty_t]

This is really interesting that I just saw this. I am suffering through waves of panic attacks at the moment, and they seem to come with a number of physical symptoms ( mostly shortness of breath, unable to eat, heart beating quickly). However I don't have any particular thoughts or anything that I am focussing on. In the past, most of my panic attacks centered on a particular negative thought that I couldn't get my mind away from. I think the important thing is to try and not let it impress you so much. Every panic attack is different, if this one is, so what?

[pisforpanic]

This is a super common occurrence for me. It is almost worse than an actual panic attack because at least I can make sense of that. I will have the shortness of breath, strange sensations in arms and legs, mental fog, and be totally calm. I did some reading up and found an interesting explanation that basically said when your body or mind has been in a state of stress or anxiety for a long time, it is not abnormal to have the physical symptoms without realizing or thinking you are anxious. It's almost like a subconscious panic attack. This made a ton of sense to me, as I am pretty sure I have lived in a state of anxiety steadily for about 8 months BC of some life circumstances. Hope this helps.

[Turntsnacko]

Omg anxiety sucks...I hope you all get better because you all deserve it. BUT...to remain on point. I only started suffering anxiety and anxiety attacks earlier this month. You see, some of the symptoms, in my case...Frequent urination, sweating, restlessness, trouble concentrating and more. These are things I've had for YEARS with no issues involving anxiety. Then, BOOM! Starting around May 10th is just insane anxiety left and right. It almost feels like...(Bear with me on this) Like maybe, this whole time i had a chemical blockage created by the Cymbalta. The it finally burst throught due to high blood pressure...Is that crazy talk?...Cause that's how this particular occurrence got me.

[DJP]

Anxiety has started to creep into one of the things I enjoy most: tennis. It doesn't happen every time that I play, but at least one in every three. I'll be going along in the match and then will have a rubbery leg feeling, accompanied by noticing my heartbeat in my head. If it's really bad I'll feel a bit unstable on my feet. What really bothers me is the seeming randomness of it. I've played on hot days where panic should have set in and nothing happens. Of course, this is terrible for your tennis game, and you'd feel like a dolt if you shared it with your partners.

My anxiety, for the most part, seems like it is not attached to what is going on me with psychologically. Perhaps it is accumulated stress that reaches a "release point" and needs to escape but it almost always starts with physical sensations. It has been touched upon in other threads here, but I think it is worth noting again. We have a hypersensitive CNS. The slightest physical sensation moves from thought to symptom in a nano second. In my case with regard to tennis, perhaps my electrolytes are off balance, I'm dehydrated or the pollen count is extremely high, creating a hystamine reaction. Or maybe it is a combination of all of those things, plus an additive that was in the food I ate two hour before playing.

[SanFranLarry]

Okay, I am laughing at this for the simple reason that everyone I know who suffers from anxiety, goes through this. Everything is going great -- no problems in life and then, here comes Mr. Satan for no reason at all.

[SanFranLarry]

This makes total sense to me.


This is a super common occurrence for me. It is almost worse than an actual panic attack because at least I can make sense of that. I will have the shortness of breath, strange sensations in arms and legs, mental fog, and be totally calm. I did some reading up and found an interesting explanation that basically said when your body or mind has been in a state of stress or anxiety for a long time, it is not abnormal to have the physical symptoms without realizing or thinking you are anxious. It's almost like a subconscious panic attack. This made a ton of sense to me, as I am pretty sure I have lived in a state of anxiety steadily for about 8 months BC of some life circumstances. Hope this helps.