Anxiety can affect your body in fairly unusual ways. While you may be aware that anxiety can cause your heart rate to increase and your body to sweat, you may not be aware that anxiety can have a much broader impact on all of your senses.
In this article, we'll look at a small sample of some of the sensory problems caused by anxiety, and discuss what you can do to control these experiences.
Anxiety and the Five Senses
Every one of your senses can be affected by anxiety in different ways. Anxiety can also lead you to develop more long standing issues, where you start to experience unusual physical symptoms that don't generally fall under the category of anxiety.
Let's take a look at each of the five senses individually and discuss some of the most common anxiety symptoms that fall under each category.
How Anxiety Affects Touch
Sensory abnormalities related to touch are common, although often the person suffering from them doesn't realize that it's a sensory problem. Anxiety can cause numbness and tingling, especially in the limbs, and some people experience burning sensations on their skin. Anxiety may also cause people to experience hot or cold sensations in their body, especially when they come into contact with objects or environments that are of different temperatures.
Many people also develop an increased sensitivity to pain and discomfort, and others experience a positive touch in a negative way, such as when you hold hands with someone. We’re not sure how exactly anxiety alters the link between touch-receptors in your skin and your brain; but often the frustration and irritability that accompany anxiety can make all of these experiences and sensitivities that much worse.
How Anxiety Affects Hearing
Anxiety may also cause sensory problems related to hearing. There is some evidence that anxiety is associated with auditory hallucinations (such as hearing voices), although these are fairly uncommon, according to a 2016 paper on the topic.
However, anxiety can make harmless (but irritating) issues like tinnitus worse. It can also make it more difficult to pay attention to what's going on around you, due primarily to distractions but also the way anxiety overwhelms the mind. This might mean that you fail to hear something; or perhaps that you mishear it. It can also make the noises you hear around you seem harsher and more grating.
How Anxiety Affects Vision
Vision is often affected by anxiety. The adrenaline released by anxiety dilates the pupils, and when the pupils are dilated you may experience any number of symptoms:
Brighter lights and light flashes.
Blurry vision.
Tunnel vision.
Some people with anxiety report seeing specks in their vision, or double vision. However, it’s not clear at this point whether anxiety actually causes these problems.
How Anxiety Affects Taste
Taste can also be affected by anxiety to some extent. There is some evidence (discussed in the 2012 paper referenced below) that stress changes the sensitivity of taste buds, perhaps also altering the way that signals travel between your taste buds and brain.
You might, for example, experience a metallic or salty taste. It should also be noted that anxiety can cause excess salivation and acid reflux - both of which may also causes changes to your tastes. Anxiety may also cause you to become more sensitive to certain types of tastes.
How Anxiety Affects Smell
Finally, there's also the sense of smell. Anxiety and emotion more generally do seem to affect the way in which a person perceives smells (in terms of the intensity of the smell and how quickly that smell is noticed). However, we don’t yet fully understand the nature of this link.
Furthermore, anxiety can make people more sensitive to bad smells. They may focus on them more or notice them more often. That gives the impression that there are more negative smells, when in reality the person is simply noticing them. Additionally, anxiety can lead to a buildup of mucus. Mucus itself can have a smell, and it can also dampen other smells in some cases.
Stopping Anxiety Sensory Problems
As we have discussed, anxiety is closely tied up with the neurological functioning of our bodies and brains. Each of our senses can be affected in different ways by the anxiety that we experience. If these sorts of sensory changes are causing you distress, the simplest solution is to address the underlying anxiety that is causing such sensory alterations.
Anxiety can cause numbness and tingling, especially in the limbs, and some people experience burning sensations on their skin. Anxiety may also cause people to experience hot or cold sensations in their body, especially when they come into contact with objects or environments that are of different temperatures.
Sensory overload and anxiety are mental health conditions that are deeply related to one another. When a person feels anxious or already overwhelmed, they may be more prone to experiencing sensory overload in certain situations. Likewise, experiencing sensory overload can make you feel a sense of anxiety.
This is influenced by another hormone, adrenaline, which affects the composition of your saliva. Adrenaline is released during moments of acute stress or anxiety and prepares your body for rapid action. However, it can also disrupt your sensory functions, including your sense of taste and smell.
It's an easy technique to remember and use in the moment, it's available to us the majority of the time, and it can be a simple strategy to help us focus and ground when anxiety overwhelms. Put simply, you name three things you can see, three you can hear, and move three different body parts.
It involves identifying 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste. By doing so, it helps shift your focus from anxiety-provoking thoughts to the present moment.
Sensory overload can happen to anyone, but it is more common in autistic people and people with ADHD, PTSD, and certain other conditions. It causes feelings of discomfort and being overwhelmed. Moving away from sources of sensory input, such as loud sounds or strong smells, can reduce these feelings.
Hyperstimulation anxiety is a state wherein an individual's senses are excessively stimulated, causing heightened anxiety levels. This overstimulation can occur through various channels like sounds, lights, and social interactions, causing distress and discomfort.
Sensory overload happens when one or more of our senses is overstimulated. There's suddenly too much information coming in for our brain to process. Maybe it's the roaring hand dryers in a public restroom. Or a sports bar with each TV showing a different channel.
During sensory overload or overstimulation, the brain becomes so overwhelmed with incoming information it begins to think that a threat is present and signals to the body to escape the situation. This sets off the body's fight-flight-freeze response, and feelings of anxiety, fear, and discomfort take over.
6. Philippians 4:6-7 (NKJV) “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
The good news is that some studies (study links, a and b) have identified how magnesium may ease certain symptoms of stress and anxiety. Here are the facts: Magnesium may help to control the chemical messengers (neurotransmitters) in the brain, resulting in a calming effect on the body.
More specifically we expect positive association between caring and anxiety and a negative association between the other four Cs (competence, confidence, character, and connection) and anxiety.
While anxiety and stress can play into neuropathy, they can't actually damage your nerves. This means that stress isn't a root cause of neuropathy. Even if you're incredibly stressed every day for months, that by itself won't cause damage to your nerves.
Depending on your definition, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) may be considered neurodivergent. Since 'neurodivergent' is a non-medical umbrella term, GAD may be considered by some to be neurodivergent and not by others.
Find a quiet and calm environment to retreat to. Dim the lights or create a darkened space to reduce visual stimulation. Lower the volume or wear noise-canceling headphones to dampen auditory input. Limit exposure to strong or overwhelming smells.
Sensory Sensitivity in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
One of the symptom criteria for ASD in the DSM-5 is “hyper- or hypo-reactivity to sensory input or unusual interest in sensory aspects of the environment” (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013, p.
Although they sound similar, sensory processing difficulties can be present without autism. Often children or adults with other neurodevelopmental or psychiatric conditions such as Developmental Delay, Intellectual Disability, Anxiety, ADHD, or mood disorders can also exhibit Sensory Processing Disorder.
Introduction: My name is Nathanael Baumbach, I am a fantastic, nice, victorious, brave, healthy, cute, glorious person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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