Chest pains/tightness

[Abbieexx]

Hello :) my name is Abbie and I am 21 years old. I have social anxiety and general anxiety but have always dealt with them in my own ways rather than seeking help. I started my first ever job at the beginning of September and have dealt with my social anxiety so amazingly well! I just have one problem, on Saturday night I went out for drinks with two friends from work and experienced chest pains and tightness, this is not the first time I have experienced this whilst going out on a night, it does happen very often. Is this a symptom of my anxiety? I did not feel anxious at all during the night but I think my mind and my body knew I was in an anxious situation. Does anyone else have this problem and if so, I would love some tips on how to prevent or relieve the pain, we were out for 6 hours before the pain became too much and I decided to go home. Any help at all is appreciated, thank you :)

[raggamuffin]

Chest tightness is one of the most common symptoms from anxiety. You don't have to feel overly anxious to get pains from long standing anxieties or worries. An anxious situation you said - ergo the fight or flight response would be firing off. Excess adrenaline in the blood which is pumped to the chest wall muscles to strengthen them and therefore protect vital organs from impacts. It's a genius system.

But the fight or flight response is an outdated system that's not changed since back when our ancestors were hunting mammoths. These days it can often be people's undoing. When it fires off excessively with anxious people they can wind up getting muscular pains and all sorts of symptoms.

But it'll always pass. The more you worry about a symptom the longer you make it last. It could be over in seconds, minutes, days, weeks, months, even years. it all depends on how much time you invest in worrying about the symptoms. Trust me, I've had so many aches, pains and symptoms that anxiety has subjected me to. It's taken about 4.5 years before I really truly grasped things and nowadays my body barely hurts. This is from the past 4+ years of 24/7 constant pains.

Ed