Tag: anxiety

Anxiety Understood: Checklists

Overcoming-Social-Anxiety
Anxiety often feels like this

Personally, I have wrestled with anxiety over the years. The residual effect on my personality has been profound. The ‘panic attacks’ are coming about once a week, and they can be a formidable enemy. So far, I have not required meds for them, but I usually just crawl into bed, dim the lights and pray. They seems to pass in about 20 minutes. However the other symptoms kind of linger– a sort of ‘background noise’ to the soundtrack of my everyday life. Low levels of anxiety can be brought under control by the work of the Holy Spirit.

I hold God by His promises of peace. I have not been instantly healed yet, but I’m learning to cling to Jesus through it. I have to believe that anxiety keeps me close to Him, I suppose that is a good thing.

Common anxiety symptoms include:

Body (anxiety symptoms commonly associated with the body in general):

  • Allergy problems, increase in allergies (number, sensitivity, reactions, lengthier reactions)
    Back pain, stiffness, tension, pressure, soreness, spasms, immobility in the back or back muscles
  • Blanching (looking pale, loss of color in the face or skin)
  • Blushing, turning red, flushed face, flushed skin, blushing, red face or skin
  • Body jolts, body zaps, electric jolt feeling in body, intense body tremor or “body shake”
  • Body temperature increase or decrease, change in body temperature
  • Burning skin, itchy, “crawly,” prickly or other skin sensations, skin sensitivity, numbness on the skin
  • Burning skin sensation on the face, neck, ears, scalp, or shoulders
  • Chest pain, chest tightness
  • Choking
  • Chronic Fatigue, exhaustion, super tired, worn out
  • Clumsiness, feeling clumsy, co-ordination problems with the limbs or body
  • Cold chills, feeling cold
  • Craving sugar, sweets, chocolate, usual craving for sugar and sweets
  • Difficulty speaking, moving mouth, talking, co-ordination problems with the mouth or tongue
  • Dizziness, feeling lightheaded
  • Dizzy, feeling dizzy
  • Electric shock feeling, body zaps
  • Excess of energy, you feel you can’t relax
  • Falling sensation, feel like your are falling or dropping even though you aren’t
  • Feel like you are going to pass out or faint
  • Feeling cold or chilled
  • Feel wrong, different, foreign, odd, or strange
  • Flu-like symptoms, general malaise, feel ill, like you are coming down with a flu
  • Flushed face, red face, flushed skin
  • “Head Zaps”
  • Heart palpitations, racing heart
  • Hyperactivity, excess energy, nervous energy
  • Increased or decreased sex drive
  • Infection – increased infections, persistent infection
  • Mouth or throat clicking or grating sound/noise when you move your mouth or jaw, such as when talking
  • Muscles that vibrate, jitter, tremor, or shake when used
  • Muscle twitching
  • Nausea
  • Nausea, vomiting
  • Neck, back, shoulder pain, tightness/stiffness
  • Night sweats, waking up in a sweat, profusely sweating at night
  • No energy, feeling lethargic, tired
  • Numbness
  • Numbness tingling, numbness and tingling
  • Numbness and tingling, and other skin sensations on hands, feet, face, head, or any other places on the body
  • Persistent muscle tension, stiffness
  • Pounding heart, heart feels like it is beating too hard
  • Pulsing or throbbing muscles. Pulsing or throbbing sensation.
  • Rib or rib cage tightness, pressure, or feeling like a tight band around the rib cage
  • Sexual Dysfunction, sexual uninterest
  • Shooting pains, stabbing pains, and odd pressures in the neck, head or face
  • Shooting pains in the face
  • Shooting pains in the scalp or head
  • Skipped heart beats
  • Sore or tight scalp or back of the neck
  • Startle easily
  • Sweating, uncontrollable profuse sweating
  • The floor feels like it is moving either down or up for no reason
  • Tightness in the ribs or rib cage area, may also feel like a tight band around the ribs or rib cage area.
  • Tingling sensations, anywhere on the body, including the hands, feet, legs, arms, head, mouth, chest, groin area
  • Throat or mouth clicking or grating sound/noise when you move your mouth or jaw, such as when talking
  • TMJ
  • Trembling or shaking
  • Twitching
  • Unsteadiness, dizziness, feeling dizzy or lightheaded
  • Urgency to urinate, frequent urination, sudden urge to go to the washroom (similar to urinary tract or prostate infection symptoms)
  • Warm spells
  • Weak – feel weak, weakness, low energy, light, soft, like you may faint
  • Weak legs, arms, or muscles
  • Weight loss, weight gain

Chest (anxiety symptoms commonly associated with the chest area):

  • Chest pain or discomfort
  • Concern about the heart
  • Feel like you have to force yourself to breath
  • Find it hard to breath, feeling smothered, shortness of breath
  • Frequent yawning to try and catch your breath
  • Heart Palpitations – beating hard or too fast, rapid heartbeat
  • Heart – Irregular heart rhythms, flutters or ‘skipped’ beats, tickle in the chest that makes you cough
  • Pounding heart, heart feels like it is beating too hard
  • Rib or rib cage tightness, pressure, or feeling like a tight band around the rib cage
  • Emotions (see mood) (anxiety symptoms commonly associated with emotions, mood, and feelings)

Fears (anxiety symptoms commonly associated with fear):

  • A heightened fear of what people think of you
  • Afraid of being trapped in a place with no exits
  • Constant feeling of being overwhelmed.
  • Fear of being in public
  • Fear of dying
  • Fear of losing control
  • Fear of impending doom
  • Fear of making mistakes or making a fool of yourself to others
  • Fear of passing out
  • Fear that you are losing your mind
  • Fears about irrational things, objects, circumstances, or situations
  • Fears of going crazy, of dying, of impending doom, of normal things, unusual feelings and emotions, unusually frightening thoughts or feelings
  • Heightened self awareness, or self-consciousness
  • Need to find nearest washrooms before you can feel comfortable
  • Need to seat near exits

Head (anxiety symptoms commonly associated with the head):

  • Burning, itchy, tight scalp
  • Dizziness
  • Dizzy
  • Dizziness or light-headedness
  • Frequent headaches, migraine headaches
  • Feeling like there is a tight band around your head, pressure, tightness
  • Head, neck or shoulder pain, tightness/stiffness
  • Head zaps, head tremors
  • Giddiness
  • Numbness
  • Numbness tingling, numbness and tingling
  • Shooting pains, stabbing pains, and odd pressures in the neck, head, or face
  • Shooting pains in the face
  • Shooting pains in the scalp or head
  • When you close your eyes you feel like are beginning to, or will, float upwards
  • Sore jaw that feels like a tooth ache
  • TMJ (Temporo-Mandibular Joint) – clenching of the jaw or grinding of the teeth

Hearing/Ear(s) (anxiety symptoms commonly associated with hearing):

  • Feel like there is something stuck in your ear, that your ear canal it plugged or blocked, that there is a pebble in your ear that you can’t get out
  • Low rumbling sounds
  • Reduced hearing, frequent or intermittent reduced hearing or deafness in one or both ears
  • Ringing in the ears, noises in the ears, noises in the head
  • Pulsing in the ears, throbbing sound in the ear(s)

Mind (anxiety symptoms commonly associated with the mind and thinking):

  • Afraid of everything
  • Altered state of reality, consciousness, or universe feeling
  • Deja Vu, a feeling like you’ve done or experienced something before
  • Depersonalization
  • Derealization
  • Desensitization
  • Difficulty concentrating, short-term memory loss
  • Difficulty thinking, speaking, forming thoughts, following conversations
  • Disorientation
  • Fear of going crazy
  • Fear of losing control
  • Fear of impending doom
  • Feelings of unreality
  • Frequent feeling of being overwhelmed, or that there is just too much to handle or do
  • Having difficulty concentrating
  • Nightmares, bad dreams
  • Obsession about sensations or getting better
  • Repetitive thinking or incessant ‘mind chatter’
  • Short-term learning impairment, have a hard time learning new information
  • Short-term memory impairment, can’t remember what I did a few days, hours, or moments ago
  • Spaced out feelings, feeling spaced out
  • “Stuck” thoughts; thoughts, mental images, concepts, songs, or melodies that “stick” in your mind and replay over and over again.
  • Trapped in your mind feeling
  • Underlying anxiety, apprehension, or fear
  • You often feel you are carrying the world on your shoulders

Mood / Emotions (anxiety symptoms commonly associated with mood, emotions, and feelings):

  • Always feeling angry and lack of patienceups-downs-anxiety_3011
  • Depersonalization
  • Depression
  • Dramatic mood swings (emotional flipping)
  • Emotionally blunted, flat, or numb
  • Emotional “flipping” (dramatic mood swings)
  • Emotions feel wrong
  • Everything is scary, frightening
  • Feeling down in the dumps
  • Feeling like things are unreal or dreamlike
  • Frequently being on edge or ‘grouchy’
  • Feel like crying for no apparent reason
  • Have no feelings about things you used to
  • Not feeling like yourself, detached from loved ones, emotionally numb
  • Underlying anxiety, apprehension, or fear
  • You feel like you are under pressure all the time

Mouth/Stomach (anxiety symptoms commonly associated with the mouth and stomach):

  • A ‘tinny’, ‘metallic’ or ‘ammonia’, or unusual smell or taste
  • Aerophagia (swallowing too much air, stomach distention, belching)
  • Burning mouth, feeling like the inside of your mouth is burning, or tingling, or like pins and needles, or all of these together or at different times
  • Burning tongue, feeling like your tongue is burning, or tingling, or like pins and needles, or all of these, or all of these together or at different times
  • Choking
  • Constant craving for sugar or sweets
  • Constipation
  • Diarrhea
  • Difficulty swallowing
  • Difficulty talking, pronouncing certain letters or sounds, mouth feels like it isn’t moving right, slurred speech
  • Dry mouth
  • Feeling like you can’t swallow properly or that something will get caught in your throat
  • Feeling like your tongue is swollen
  • Lack of appetite or taste
  • Lump in the throat, tight throat, something stuck in your throat
  • Mouth muscles twitching/jumping
  • Mouth or throat clicking or grating sound/noise when you move your mouth or jaw, such as when talking
  • Nausea
  • Nausea vomiting
  • Nausea or abdominal stress
  • Numbness
  • Numbness tingling, numbness and tingling
  • Stomach upset, gas, belching, bloating
  • Teeth grinding
  • The thought of eating makes you nauseous
  • Tight throat, lump in throat
  • Throat or mouth clicking or grating sound/noise when you move your mouth or jaw, such as when talking
  • TMJ
  • Tongue symptoms – Tingly, “stretched,” numb, frozen, itchy, “crawly,” burning, twitching, “jumpy,” aching, sore, or swollen tongue (when it isn’t).
  • Urgency to urinate, frequent urination, sudden urge to go to the washroom
  • Vomiting

Skin (anxiety symptoms commonly associated with the skin):

  • Burning skin sensations, skin sensitivity
  • Numbness
  • Numbness tingling, numbness and tingling
  • Skin problems, infections, rashes

Sleep (anxiety symptoms commonly associated with sleep):

  • Difficulty falling or staying asleep
  • Frequent bad, bizarre, or crazy dreams
  • Hearing sounds in your head that jolt you awake
  • Insomnia, or waking up ill in the middle of the night
  • Jolting awake
  • Waking up in a panic attack
  • You feel worse in the mornings

Sight (anxiety symptoms commonly associated with sight):

  • Distorted, foggy, or blurred vision
  • Dry, watery or itchy eyes
  • Eye tricks, seeing things our of the corner of your eye that isn’t there, stars, flashes
  • Eyes sensitive to light
  • Spots in the vision
  • Flashing lights when eyes are closed
  • Your depth perception feels wrong

Touch (anxiety symptoms commonly associated with touch):

  • Burning skin sensations, skin sensitivity
  • Feeling cold or chilled
  • Numbness
  • Numbness tingling, numbness and tingling
  • Pain
  • Tingling, pins and needles feelings

Other anxiety symptoms are described as:

Being like a hypochondriac, muscle twinges, worry all the time, tingles, gagging, tightness in the chest, tongue twitches, shaky, breath lump, heart beat problems, head tingles, itchy tingling in arms and legs, and so many more.

In addition to these anxiety symptoms, you may also find yourself worrying compulsively about:

• Having a heart attack • Having a serious undetected illness • Dying prematurely • Going insane or losing your mind • Suddenly snapping • Losing it • Uncontrollably harming yourself or someone you love • Losing control of your thoughts and actions • Being embarrassed or making a fool out of yourself • Losing control • Fainting in public • Not breathing properly • Losing control of reality • Choking or suffocating • Being alone

These are some of the more common anxiety symptoms. This list isn’t exhaustive. :-)

This information can also be found at: http://www.anxietycentre.com/anxiety-symptoms.shtml

Good Teaching by CBN on Overcoming Anxiety http://www.cbn.com/spirituallife/teachingsheets/keys-Overcoming_Anxiety_Worry_and_Tension.aspx

Jesus says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Matthew 11:28, ESV

bry-signat (2)

Anxiety: Strength Emptied

“Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.”

Charles Spurgeon

We wrestle with amazing issues, they parade like certainties.  That is part of their strength.  Anxiety over our future, is a very difficult thing to separate from.  The dictionary has a simple definition,  “distress or uneasiness of mind caused by fear of danger or misfortune. a state of uneasiness or tension caused by apprehension of possible future misfortune, danger, etc; worry.

We can define it in a sort of abstract form, but anxiety has a vicious bite.  I believe it is the most common enemy of our souls.  (Maybe “pride” would be the most challenging?)  However our anxiety affects our children, finances and our status in this world.  We are so edgy, and have been for so long that it seems very normal.

Quite expectedly, Wikipedia gives us this explanation.  “Worry is thoughts and images of a negative nature in which mental attempts are made to avoid anticipated potential threats.  As an emotion it is experienced as anxiety or concern about a real or imagined issue, usually personal issues such as health or finances or broader ones such as environmental pollution and social or technological change.” 

Ok, well, that quote is a bit intense and perhaps a bit complicated.  But as I read it, the phrase, “an anticipation of evil things”  pops into my mind.

I guess there is an effort on our part to somehow equalize the pressure.  But typically it’s only enough to make us “humanly” passable, and acceptable to our dear ones.  But the truth is, we fear way too much.  Our anxiety over the future has a corrosive effect, it just eats us up.  We are like ships, who periodically come into port to have our hulls cleaned.  Somehow, if we decide to forego this, we will find that it diminishes us, and often drastically.

Anxiety is a weight that pulls us down: spiritually, and emotionally and even physically. It is worry that has gone viral in our thinking. We can think of nothing else.  There exists something that our psychologists call an “anxiety disorder.”  To be blunt, today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday. Worry, doubt, fear and despair are the enemies which slowly bring us down to the ground and turn us to dust before we die.

There is not much more I can say.  As we grow more and more anxious, we will drive a simple faith in Jesus away.  Simply put, worry, and the presence of Jesus can never truly agree.  They are on opposite sides of the spectrum.  One will rule, and the other won’t.

“Worrying is carrying tomorrow’s load with today’s strength, carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.”

Corrie Ten Boom

Worry needs to be considered as if it were ‘armed and dangerous.’  Lust, pride, and apostasy are certainly thought of as dark, and evil. But worry has got to rank up there.

Our anxiety is a declaration of God’s unfaithfulness.  It is a “neon sign” that blinks out His perceived negligence and His ineptitude.

Please dear one, shake off this deep deceit.  Renounce your worry, your anxiety.  The One who feeds the sparrows, couldn’t forget you.  You are His, by blood.  He has gone far beyond the extra mile to obtain you to be His own.

“Don’t fear, little flock, because your Father wants to give you the kingdom.”

Luke 12:32, NCV

 bry-signat (1)

cropped-christiangraffiti1.jpg

Related articles

Elijah Had Issues as Well

elijah
Elijah and the Angel

“Then Elijah walked for a whole day into the desert. He sat down under a bush and asked to die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he prayed. “Let me die. I am no better than my ancestors.”

1 Kings 19:4

Poor Elijah.  He was bold and heroic, taking on the enemy at Mt. Carmel.  A mighty victory was wonderously won, but here he is, completely defeated and overpowered by his own fear and doubt.  How defeated was he?  We hear him begging to be allowed to die.  He had become overwhelmed.

You could say that Elijah was saturated with fear.  He could not resist taking on the conflict.  It seemed to him that everything was now directed at him.  He couldn’t take one step forward.  So, he folded.  Everything was affecting him on a personal level, and he was not built to take the load. Many of God’s children come to this point.

He was shorting out.  His circuits were not designed for this.  He crumbles under the weight.  As we read the text, it all seems to be a bit off.  We shake our heads and wonder about strange Elijah.  We see him incapacitated by his doubt and fear.  But it doesn’t seem to us to be an issue.  The prophets of Baal wouldn’t deceive the Israelites anymore. After all, he had just achieved a fantastic victory that should propel him to the next encounter.

“Elijah was a human being just like us.” –James 5:17

The servants of the Lord are vulnerable.  As we step into the flow of God’s presence we will come “face-to-face “with things that are beyond us.  Often we will find ourselves pushed beyond our limits, backed in a corner and stripped of our weaponry.  Our enemies now turn to face us without fear of reprisal.

Our Father deals gently with a wounded servant.

Elijah had been crippled.  He had nothing more to give.  We can shake our head, and pass him by as a casualty of a spiritual war. But the funny thing is that God tells his story, he has been added to the narrative of scripture.  His falterings, and failings has become our focal point.  Elijah, with all his issues must be faced, and we must look at him.  We see the tenderness and gentleness of God as He deals with His bruised servant. God loves His broken believers. (1 Kings 19:12-13).

His Spirit is oh so gentle.  He comes whispering.  He lifts Elijah at Elijah’s pace.  A painful rebuke, and a harsh word of correction is not in His vocabulary, it is not even considered.  Our Father deals carefully with a wounded servant.  Elijah would go on to serve Jehovah.  Elijah would be a changed man.  God had mended him.

bry-signat (1)

cropped-christiangraffiti1.jpg

Related articles

O Hang On, Dear One!

“He comes to us in the brokenness of our health, in the shipwreck of our family lives, in the loss of all possible peace of mind, even in the very thick of our sins. He saves us in our disasters, not from them. He emphatically does not promise to meet only the odd winner of the self-improvement lottery: He meets us all in our endless and inescapable losing.”

Robert Farrar Capon

For most of us, life is not an ecstasy of really wonderful things that roll unceasingly over us. Sometimes it attacks us. It can have teeth. Goblins and giants begin to encircle us, pressing to our very door. Several friends of mine have faced down divorce lately. Others have gotten very sick. I have some dear ones who battle with mental illnesses. Pain, pain, and more pain.

I certainly don’t intend to be excessively bleak. It was Job who described us as, “Man is born to trouble, as the ‘sparks’ fly upward.” Job was no pessimist, but he was neither an optimist. But he fully grasped that bad things will happen to good people. And I suppose sitting quietly, grieving with friends will adjust your perspective.

“Paul and Barnabas returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch of Pisidia, 22 where they strengthened the believers. They encouraged them to continue in the faith, reminding them that we must suffer many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.”

Acts 14:21, 22, NLT

These two heroes of the faith, Paul and Barnabas visit these cities. They now have an awareness of what their message is to be. It was one of encouragement, and of endurance, and of the ways of God. They both had the physical evidence to show that they “understood” the scope of their teaching.

Suffering is like learning another language. It is then you can minister deeply.

When I learned Spanish it was a new and vital way of communicating to millions of other people. Learning to speak “fluent” suffering will open up the world to billions of people. Learning to speak the language of pain will unlock many closed doors. Broken believers are in high demand for this “kind of work.”

A lot of us will never learn. We are sold on this exotic idea that God wants us healthy and wealthy. But health and wealth were never supposed to be ends in themselves. Jesus is to be all we seek and desire. When the bottom drops out, will Jesus be enough for you? Will you be encouraged by this revelation of suffering to enter the Kingdom?

“So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you! Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised.”

Hebrews 10:36, NLT

flourish20

“You will know more of Jesus in one sanctified trial, than in wading through a library of volumes, or listening to a lifetime of sermons.” 

Octavius Winslow

“Adversity is always unexpected and unwelcomed. It is an intruder and a thief, and yet in the hands of God, adversity becomes the means through which His supernatural power is demonstrated.” 

Charles Stanley

“He knows when we go into the storm, He watches over us in the storm, and He can bring us out of the storm when His purposes have been fulfilled.” 

Warren W. Wiersbe

cropped-christiangraffiti1-2

Related articles