How to stop mild but annoying physical symptoms?

[Dylanology]

In general, I am a confident person (certainly in the way I act you wouldn't guess I suffered from anxiety), but often I have near constant mild anxiety symptoms - butterflies in stomach, trembling in my diaphragm, cold hands and feet etc (along with only occasional psychological sense of directionless anxiety, usually accompanied by more pronounced physical symptoms) - and while it doesn't impact my life much, it is pretty annoying. How can I reduce/get rid of these physical symptoms (I can put up with the psychological ones because they are much rarer)? I do find they affect my sleep as well as providing general discomfort during the day.

I'm healthy in general and very fit (so more exercise isn't the answer) and my diet is OK, with what I'd guess to be an average caffeine intake (around 100-200mg per day).

[alankay]

Dylan, a beta blocker might be a poor choice as you seem to have a touch of Generalized Anxiety as opposed to Social Anxiety causing(being the main driver) of your body symptoms so I bet a SSRI might be a good first choice(low dose to start for sure). Your coffee intake(if coffee is your drink) is pretty low in the grand scheme of things so I think is not a concern here. Believe it or not there is some connection between the psychological and somatic(body) symptoms(i.e., your thoughts/worries as an ultimate source) and an MD/DO would be much likely to want you to have a trial of say zoloft 25mg, fluoxetine 10mg, celexa 10mg, daily for a while and seeing how it benefits you. I take propranolol(beta blocker) but only for very limited situations(interviews, presentations, etc) and not so much for any "most of the day" symptoms as it's half life is only 3-5 hours. Buspar is also used for Generalized Anxiety but most docs seem to prefer and SSRI as it usually is dosed twice a day and not any more effective for GAD than SSRI's. That's my take. You really shouldn't get much in the way of any side effects on the half dose regime. If you increased the dose after a month or so(IF needed), I doubt you'd get any of them for the most part since your body will be used to the med in your system. Atenolol is a longer acting beta blocker but I had to stop it as I'm a runner and my pulse was too low to use that med safely and you might be in the same boat there. Atenolol is best for a racing heart as it's cardioselective so unless that's an issue(racing heart), don't even consider it. Talk to your GP and go from there. Message me any time. Alan.