Anxiety, Panic, Stress and Physical symptoms

During last two months I’ve been experiencing a series of physical symptoms such as sweating, sharp pains in various parts of my body, hot flashes, vomiting and nausea. For no apparent reason I tremble or lose my breath. My close friend believes that all these things happen because I have recently got divorced and had to move to another town and find a new job. This, she says, causes serious panic attacks and the stress makes just one miserable person of me. I was always healthy, normal person. Could she be right?

Your friend is undoubtedly right - all those symptoms pretty clearly indicate the state of prolonged anxiety. Stressful situations in life normally cause numerous disorders, and panic attacks (involving intense fear sensations, pain in chest, fatigue, trembling, headaches, nausea, vomiting and many other difficulties) go together with mental symptoms (depression, lack of concentration, loss of willingness to live, work and create, fear of dying etc.). It is possible to alleviate your physical symptoms, which are actually the reaction of your body to the imbalance of hormones and other chemicals secreted by various parts of your brain in stressful moments. The best thing to do is to try and eliminate at least some initiators of stress and anxiety in your life, to calm and soothe your body by practicing yoga (or simply by deep breathing), to improve your diet (fruits and vegetables are a must, avoid animal fats, sugar, coffee...). You should also consult your doctor - general check - up will reveal if a more serious condition is beyond these physical symptoms.