Surprising physical symptoms of anxiety and depression

 I want to talk to you today about some of the crazy physical symptoms that you can get with depression anxiety and honestly like really most mental health conditions people come to me all the time with a variety of physical symptoms that have they've been completely unable to find out a reason why they're having these symptoms they've been to like a million doctors tried a million medications tried all of the different crazy voodoo cure things that they can get their hands on because nothing is working and I sit down with them and it's like super obvious that they have an untreated anxiety or depressive disorder that is probably prompting all of these symptoms and the great thing about that is anxiety and depression and pretty much every other mental health condition is entirely treatable so when we treat the mental health condition that underlies the physical symptoms that they're experiencing guess what the physical symptoms go away so I want to teach you what some of these physical symptoms are obviously this is not intended to be medical advice and is definitely not intended to supersede the advice of your physician.                                                                                                                  if you're having any physical symptoms that are bothersome to you please don't trust me, please go see your doctor and talk with them about some of the symptoms that you're experiencing so that they can do a proper workup and look for potential other causes because you know yes these can all be caused by depression anxiety but you can also have depression anxiety in another medical condition that's causing some of these symptoms so it's really important to get checked out by your doc and not just be like oh this is just my anxiety I'm not gonna worry about it this is just my depression once your doctor has checked you out and says you know what yeah I think this is most likely the anxiety or depression or has ruled everything else out then it's time to go after those full-force and see if we can get these physical symptoms better alright so honestly the physical symptoms that you can get with depression anxiety and mental health condition are kind of endless so I've just picked the ones that I see most commonly but like honestly I've kind of seen it all so let's just go down a list and talk about each one of them and again these are kind of the things I see most commonly so first thing I hear about all the time is extreme fatigue like people with depression anxiety can be beyond exhausted it takes a lot of mental energy to have one of these psychiatric disorders and you're usually not sleeping that well you're usually constantly revved up and like on high alert all the time so you're gonna be exhausted physically mentally everything and people will describe to me this just profound fatigue it's not like you're I had a long day at work fatigue it's like a thinking like I can't get off the couch if I wanted to fatigue like I'm so exhausted I can barely move it's bad so when I see people that are having this extreme fatigue we start with really really small baby steps to try and get them to do things that might be super exhausting for them so like they might have to set a goal to you know swing their feet over the side of the couch for three minutes that day it can be really that small but what we're trying to do is kind of get their body working and moving again of course for people that have profound fatigue like this they oftentimes need medicines to help with their depression or anxiety and a lot of times we need medications that have a little bit of a stimulant effect so these are the patients that I might start with something called an SN RI in versus an SSRI and if that's something you want to learn more about just let me know we can talk more about it but I'll spare you the boring details just to know that the SNRI class of medications often has a little bit more of a stimulant effect and kind of gives you a little bit more pep in your step not true for everybody but it's something I think about when I see this profound fatigue headaches are the next big one head on apply directly to the foreheadso I will see people that have gone through all sorts of crazy treatments for their head and have been on every medication for headache Under the Sun and they still have headaches and then we find out they're super anxious or super depressed and this kind of makes sense if you think about it I mean if you are anxious or depressed or have another mental health issue you're probably gonna be really tight in here like your neck and your jaw like you're plunging your teeth a lot of people with mental health issues grinding their teeth at night and that can certainly cause headaches you're also probably not taking that great care of yourself because you're struggling with a mental health issue so people with mental health issues are not drinking as much water as other people they're not eating as healthy as other people they're not sleeping well and that alone can cause headache so it really can be very interrelated nausea and vomiting are also super common in people with mental health issues the nausea and vomiting can actually even occur at times that are totally unrelated to when your feelings they anxious or super depressed so for example you might have an issue with anxiety and you're not feeling particularly anxious at that moment but you get really nauseous and it seemed to kind of come out of random and it's almost like your system is kind of out of whack if you're interested in learning more about the connection between the mind and the gut check out a recent video that I did on the subject and let me know if you have other questions okay so talking about GI s-- track the upper GI tract is not the only one that can be affected in anxiety depression and other mental health conditions lower GI tract can also be affected so most commonly this comes out as diarrhea like bad diarrhea especially in people with anxiety and you know other things I've seen things like bloating and flatulence good old-fashioned farting I'll just say farting that can also be worse and again this is because the mind and the gut are super interrelated okay sticking on the GI tract it is supe common for people with depression and anxiety to have a very significant change in their appetite so typically this is a decrease in their appetite so they may have weight loss they may just not feel like eating but have to force themselves to eat but in some types of depression especially it can actually be an increase in appetite this is most common in the type of depression that we call an atypical depression and this is associated with other particular symptoms like sleeping too much as opposed to not sleeping enough which is something we see in more of a typical depression and typical and atypical just kind of to denote what symptoms set is more common so typical depression sleeping less eating less but a typical depression we call atypical because it's less common and that's associated withsleeping more and eating more so you can really go either way with your appetite kind of related to that people with depression and anxiety can sometimes get really addicted to carbs and sweets and like all sorts of things that we know we shouldn't be eating but you just can't help yourself and I think a big part of this is because when you're depressed or anxious you're kind of looking for a little pick-me-up like you're looking for that next hit of dopamine and one surefire way to do that that we all learn because we all try some sweets at some voyant is just good old-fashioned sugar so if you are finding yourself you know wanting to cut back on sugar but having a really hard time doing so that could be one of the reasons uncontrolled anxiety and depression very similar i you know if you're trying to cut down on alcohol marijuana if you're trying to cut down on smoking cigarettes all of that stuff is going to be made so much more difficult if you have an undertreated anxiety or depressive disorder because again your brain is craving some relief and it's looking for that little bit of dopamine that neurotransmitter that kind of picks us up and activates our reward system and it's something that we're kind of in dire need of when were depressed or anxious okay unexplained pain in people with depression and anxiety is so common it is so so common and it kills me because people will go for years and years and years with this severe pain and you know look for every type of treatment I've seen people that have had multiple multiple surgeries to try and address a pain syndrome that doesn't have a clear source and the whole time it was severe depression or severe anxiety and it's amazing that when people get treatment for their depression and anxiety the pain goes away and if it doesn't go away it can get significantly better and then we can start working with them on things like physical therapy and you know just good old-fashioned cognitive behavioral therapy or acceptance commitment therapy to kind of help them work through that pain okay feeling heavy or slowed down is definitely a problem that I see especially in depression and again this is something that you know traditionally we associate with an atypical depression some people have called it feeling leaden or like you're full of lead so you're you will physically like feel.

like your legs are full of concrete like it can be really bad other people tell me they feel like they're moving through mud or through like quicksand or something like it's just everything it takes so much more energy and you're so much more slowed down if you have trouble with anxiety and especially with panic attacks the next set of symptoms you will be unfortunately very familiar with and we see things like shortness of breath so it can be really hard for people to catch their breath for like no apparent reason chest pain is so common chest pain chest tightness so many people end up in the ER for chest pains and they're actually having a panic because it can be that convincing you might feel shaky you might feel jittery you might get tremors so sometimes people who can get worried that they have things like Parkinson's disease because they're so shaky all the time but really what it is is this you know constant anxiety that they're dealing with their sympathetic nervous system is on overdrive its revved up you're basically ready to fight a bear at all times and that is gonna make you shape people can also feel like palpitations or fluttering in their chest so they might feel like their heart is skipping a beat so that can be really scary and it's actually not all that uncommon for healthy people to have their heart skipa beat every so often but if you're someone who's very anxious and very sensitive to that anxiety that skipped beat could send you into a tailspin and a total panic attack hot and cold flashes are also super common in depression and anxiety so people will go from feeling super hot and sweaty and achy and throwing their sheets off their bed to being freezing cold and shaking and feeling like they need a million blankets over them problems with sexual function are so common in people with depression and anxiety I would say it's probably one of the most common physical symptoms and it makes a lot of sense.