“I feel so weird, I don’t even know how to describe it!” is something you would hear me say constantly during my very worst days at the peak of severe anxiety.
If I wasn’t saying it out loud, you could bet I was thinking it and falling headlong into terrifying thinking loops that would end with me sick with fear, convinced something had to be very wrong.
“It can’t be normal to feel this way every single day, can it? Can it?”
I was permanently off balance, never feeling stable on my feet or comfortable in my body, my heart never stopped racing and fluttering in my chest and, in my opinion, every other symptom feels magnified when your heart is beating at such a speed or constantly skipping beats and feeling like it’s trying to come out of your throat.
I’d get an urge to cough, feel very short of breath, and my vision would blur.
This rush of blood around my body made me feel incredibly on edge, ready to run out of wherever I was at a moment’s notice.
In fact, during my very first panic attack, in line at a drugstore, I had such an intense whoosh feeling go through my head and my heart palpitated so intensely that I actually did drop my stuff and leave.
This was the start of my panic disorder, after years of suffering with GAD (generalized anxiety disorder), but at the time I was still completely in the dark in terms of understanding anxiety and how it contributes to such scary, physical symptoms and sensations.
You just have to experience a terrifying symptom one time for your brain to store it away as DANGER and so you start to live in anticipation of experiencing it again, and this is how we usually stay stuck in the cycle.
Even though the symptom can’t cause us harm, our reaction to it is enough to make our brain think we are in serious trouble.
It’s not our brain’s job to keep us happy.
Our brain’s job is to keep us safe.
After that first panic attack, I lived in extreme fear of ever experiencing that again.
My brain took this feeling of anticipation as a sign that I was in imminent danger and so, when I was back in the situation that created all my fear in the first place, my symptoms would happen again, and again and again.
Grocery stores with their harsh fluorescent lights and all the other overwhelming stimuli became my absolute nightmare.
By the way…
You are not imaging your symptoms flaring under fluorescent lights.
Anxiety increases our sensitivity to light, which is one reason they can make you feel extra anxious. Even sunlight can make you feel more stressed than usual and symptoms like derealization may feel more intense!
There’s also a flickering with fluorescent lights that may not be seen with the naked eye, however sets off a chain reaction of activity in the brain.
This inherent flicker rate can trigger panic and increase dizziness and even contribute to migraines.
So no, it’s not in your head, those lights don’t mess around 😬
I’d always need to use a cart thanks to my extreme dizziness and standing in lines would cause my milder panic to tip over into extreme panic, as standing still is really uncomfortable when adrenaline is buzzing through your veins, because adrenaline is designed to make us move!
I would always say that if I just wasn’t dizzy and if my heart was at a slower rate that I’d feel so much better and able to get through trips even if other symptoms cropped up.
However, there was another symptom that was also incredibly unsettling and one that drove me kinda insane.
Hey head pressure, how ya doing? 🤦
Now, you’d think that head pressure isn’t too bad if someone mentions they have it and you have never experienced it.
Maybe you’d think it feels like a bit of a headache, but hey, at least it’s not dizziness or a fluttering heart, right?
Right?
Yeah, no…
Until head pressure settles into your own skull, that is.
I’d feel this squeezing sensation around my head and would always describe it as feeling like my head was going to explode.
Sometimes it would also feel like pressure on the top of my head and I’d get weird sensations in my temples too.
I’d try to massage my scalp and take deep breaths but this feeling of pressure would not leave.
Sometimes you can’t even describe it, it just feels so uncomfortable and strange.
This symptom often caused me to panic and health anxiety had me obsessing alternately between a brain tumor and dangerously high blood pressure.
Sometimes I’d get pain along with the pressure and this is when my brain tumor fears would intensify, as I’d have the pain for days, if not weeks at a time.
Other times the pressure would intensify to such an extent that I’d panic that my blood pressure was so dangerously high that I was at risk for a stroke any second.
It certainly didn’t help that I had white coat syndrome, which is when your blood pressure drastically shoots up when taken in a medical setting.
You may then start panicking (naturally) when in fact anxiety is causing such a high reading.
It’s important to remember that while anxiety can shoot up your blood pressure, it’s a temporary spike and it’s always important to let your doctor know you are anxious prior to them taking it.
Stroke fears are also one of the biggest fears when it comes to health anxiety and I share all of my fears, stories and tools with you in this book.
I know how hard it is, despite understanding how physical anxiety is, when you are dealing with such intense symptoms yourself, trust me.
Health anxiety also causes a little seed of doubt to constantly linger and we allow it to flourish when we give it attention
Those what-if’s can drive us to the brink.
It wouldn’t be health anxiety if you weren’t questioning and doubting, but this is health anxiety and nothing more.
Back to the head pressure…
Why exactly does anxiety cause the horrifying head pressure feeling?
Head pressure usually starts as a result of tension in our neck, shoulders and back.
Not matter where you are in your journey; right at the beginning, having come really far or somewhere in between, I want you to repeat this like a mantra:
Everything is connected.
Usually we can trace a symptom back to something that then makes logical sense when we choose to follow that thread and look for the pattern.
When we have no understanding of why a symptom is happening then naturally we are going to panic.
We fear what we do not understand.
In terms of head pressure and anxiety, this is most often due to tight muscles.
In fact, right now, pay attention to how you are holding your body.
Are you loose and relaxed or are your shoulders hunched around your ears?
Also, and this is something I realized I was just doing…
Are your facial muscles tensed up?
Is your jaw tight?
This tension extends to the muscles over your scalp and the result is a feeling of pressure, sometimes accompanied with pain that sets our health anxiety fears into motion.
No one likes tight shoulders or back pain, but we find this easier to accept versus head pain and strange sensations.
However, it’s the exact same thing, just in your scalp.
You are not in any danger, but the feeling is enough to make you believe you are.
And oh boy, do I know.
I wish that I could let you have a glimpse into the days when GAD symptoms ruled everything I did.
Because that’s the thing… when your physical symptoms are severe they do start to dictate your entire life.
I’d feel this awful head pressure alongside all of my other symptoms, dizziness and heart/chest symptoms being my two other top panic triggers, and I’d start hyperventilating while just putting my shoes on to leave, before I had even stepped foot outside my door.
How to manage head pressure
Number one would be to start to become more aware of where you are holding tension.
We tend to hold tension without even realizing we are doing it so by becoming aware we are able to consciously release tight areas.
This alone will go a long way in reducing that pressure, but also pain in other areas of your body.
I also love daily stretching, as this helps to stretch out areas of tension and it’s great for our nervous system.
Below you’ll find 3 videos by my favourite yoga teacher that you may enjoy.
- Here’s a quick 10 min neck and shoulder stretch that I love to do.
- A recently uploaded video that I did a few days ago when I was feeling a bit overwhelmed and it felt so good.
I also recommend browsing through her other vids, she has loads!
Magnesium
I don’t think I could ever not mention magnesium, especially after it has helped me so much in my own life.
A daily magnesium supplement can help to relax tight muscles and promote better sleep, as well as heap of other benefits.
I also love applying a magnesium gel to tight areas for faster relief, as well as to help with pain.
Manage inflammation and congestion
Another cause of head pressure is when we are congested with lots of mucus and experience facial tension too.
Yes, stress hormones can increase mucus, but what we eat can determine if we are adding to the inflammation or helping to reduce it.
Try your best to limit processed foods and artificial dyes/ingredients as much as you can.
When I started eating more whole foods, everything started to shift for me.
I go deep into my story and share exactly what I did from the beginning in my first book, Help! Why Am I So Anxious?!
Please know that I am here with you if you are currently where I was.
I permanently felt like I was about to die, and it is so draining and leaves you feeling hopeless.
There’s a message I received after my first book came out that I have never forgotten.
I think back to those times when I felt engulfed in waves of dizzying panic that made me feel physically ill, where I was too scared to leave my home and this message reminds me of how far I have come.
At the time I had resigned myself to always feeling like that.
I was too tired and had tried so many things with no success and was at my wits end.
If I could get out of that then you can too.
Let this inspire you to find that inner strength that I promise you is there, even if you can’t feel it right now.
If you tend to run to Google with every symptom or pain then consider getting yourself a copy of my Anxiety A to Z Encyclopedia.
It still allows you to satisfy that urge, that overwhelming compulsion that health anxiety causes, but I’ll never trigger you and I’ll help you better understand your symptoms and how you can start to move forward.
You deserve that.
Or get my 3 book bundle and save $42 🙂
You are not alone in this journey and I am so glad you are here.
My anxiety is specific to white coat syndrome and going to the doctor to have BP checked. How can I overcome that persistent fear? I need a tooth pulled but I’m too afraid to go because they check BP. What the world needs is a neutral way to measure BP that doesn’t involve anxiety and emotions affecting the results. Like you, I think I’ll have stroke because it will shoot up so high.