How Does Anxiety Show Up? (Anxiety Symptoms)

Anxiety is more than just 'worry'. It can affect every part of your experience - how you think, feel, move, and act. And sometimes in ways that don't immediately seem connected with fear.

Anxiety doesn't always come in the form of a movie-like panic attack. Sometimes it feels like restlessness. Or blankness. Or even a sense of stuckness from chronic avoidance.

To make things clearer, we'll break anxiety down into four main areas:

• Emotional (feelings)

• Cognitive (mind and thought)

• Physical (body)

• Behavioural (habits and patterns)

1 Emotional

• A gnawing sense of dread - like something bad might happen, but you don't know what

• Feeling helpless, stuck, or incapable of dealing with life in general

• Being on high-alert all the time (hypervigilance)

• Feeling tense, jumpy, restless, or constantly irritable

• Occasionally feeling like you’re watching things from a distance (depersonalisation)

These emotional states can either be fairly constant, like background noise. Or come in waves - some days ramping up for no obvious reason at all.

Over time they can make the days heavier and more draining, chipping away at your self-confidence, and make simple things seem overwhelming.

2 Cognitive

• Racing thoughts - either about one issue, or flitting between many

• Recurrent 'worry loops' that feel out of your control

• Overthinking even minor decisions - stuck in 'what-ifs' and 'but maybes' (indecisiveness)

• Difficulty concentrating or finishing tasks

• Jumping to worst-case scenarios (catastrophising)

• Obsessing over symptoms, bodily sensations, or repetitive/intrusive thoughts (see: health anxiety)

• Feeling blank or foggy - like mental burnout, where simple thinking is hard (often self-medicated with doom-scrolling)

An anxious brain is trying to protect you - by scanning, preparing, and planning. But instead of clarity, it creates more noise.

3 Physical

• Shortness of breath - feeling unable to fully fill your lungs

• Heart palpitations - a pounding, fluttering, or painful heartbeat

• Chest tightness, dizziness, or feeling faint

• Sweating unusually, shaky hands, or itchy skin

• Gastrointestinal issues: feeling sick (nausea), butterflies, loose or watery stools (diarrhoea), constipation, bloating, or abdominal pain

• Dry mouth

• Appetite changes - either a loss of appetite, or increased cravings (e.g. carbs, comfort food)

• Feeling like there's a lump in your throat (globus)

• Muscle twitching, foot-tapping, or other repetitive movements ('anxiety tics')

• Persistent fatigue or weak limbs

• Frequent or urgent need to urinate

• Occasional dissociative sensations i.e. feeling unreal, disconnected, or outside your body

• Sexual symptoms e.g. difficulty getting an erection (impotence) or unexplained pain during sex

• Headaches, feeling numb or light-headed, pins-and-needles, or vertigo (feeling of moving/swaying)

These symptoms can be terrifying - especially when they feel like a medical emergency. It's not uncommon for someone to find out they're suffering with anxiety after going to their GP for a stomach or heart problem that turns out to be stress-related.

4 Behavioural

• Avoiding places, situations, or conversations that might trigger discomfort or uncertainty

• Trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking from nightmares

• Repeatedly asking for reassurance (e.g. "are you sure this is ok?")

• Constant 'checking' e.g. your phone, the locks, your body, or inbox

These behaviours usually start as coping strategies. And they work - for a while. But over time, they reinforce the anxiety loop. And the crutch becomes a cage.

Understanding Your Symptoms

Anxiety won't often show up in just one of these areas. It tends to show up across all four - thoughts, emotions, body, and behaviour. Which can make it confusing, overwhelming, and difficult to explain.

Once you start to see how anxiety shows up, it becomes easier to name it - and hence choose your response.

The indecision may not be flakiness. The scrolling might not be laziness. They might be your nervous system trying its best to keep you safe from some kind of threat.

It doesn't mean you're sick or broken. But understanding how anxiety shows up for you can help you take back the reins. To meet it with curiosity instead of embarrassment or shame. And that’s the first step toward change.

Struggling with anxiety in Leighton Buzzard? I offer counselling and hypnotherapy to help you feel safer, calmer, and more in control. Get in touch now.

What Is Anxiety?

Anxiety is dread about a future you can't cope with.

It’s not fear of what’s happening now - but what might happen, what could go wrong, and whether you'll survive it.

Clinically, anxiety is defined as a state of heightened worry, tension, or arousal (stress) in response to a perceived threat - often persistent and disproportionate to the actual situation.

Anxiety, in its mild form, is called 'worry' or 'nerves'. But when the volume increases, it can spiral into sleepless nights, racing thoughts, and a sense of impending doom - even if you can't explain why.

Process vs. Personality

Short-term anxiety often passes on its own. But long-term anxiety usually needs a different kind of attention.

Anxiety can be a short-term process - a contextual mood or state - or a long-term one: a stable personality trait (temperament), or chronic pattern.

People who are wired for higher anxiety usually score higher on the Big Five Personality trait of Neuroticism.

Short-Term Anxiety (Contextual)

Short-term anxiety is common when there's an upcoming event that matters, but you don't have full control over the outcome.

In a mild form, you might call it 'nerves'.

Examples are:

• A job interview for a dream role

• An exam that could change your career

• Family court proceedings around custody or contact

• Slamming the brakes on seeing a mobile speed camera when you've already got 9 points

In each case, something significant is at stake - but the outcome isn't fully in your control. Preparing for an exam doesn't guarantee you a pass. You can slow down, but you won't know if you were quick enough until the police letter doesn't drop.

Usually, once the event (outcome) passes - for better or worse - the anxiety dissipates. Though other emotional states may take its place e.g. disappointment or grief.

Sometimes though, the anxiety doesn't disappear afterwards. It morphs - into fears about not seeing your children again, or job security after a driving ban. That shift can be a sign of something deeper or more chronic.

Long-Term Anxiety (Trait or Chronic)

Some people are wired for higher anxiety. It's part of their biology. For others, anxiety persists because it's been rehearsed and reinforced - so it never really goes away.

1 Temperament and Sensitivity

Some people feel things more intensely. They're more sensitive. Not in the pejorative sense, but in the way a leaner tree sways in a breeze while a thicker one doesn't move. They pick up more, so they react more.

They often notice what others miss - changes in voice tone, facial expressions, foreseeing risks. But that sensitivity comes at a cost. In a way, life is somewhat louder for them.

2 Chronic Patterns of Anxiety

This is where anxiety stops being tied to a particular situation and becomes the emotional baseline.

Every action, decision, and interaction is charged with nervousness. You're constantly on high alert (hypervigilance) - scanning for what might go wrong.

Often, this signals a deeper truth: your nervous system no longer trusts the world is safe.

3 Avoidance and Reinforcement

Long-term anxiety is often reinforced by coping strategies. These are learned patterns which attempt to short-circuit anxiety in the moment - but often strengthen the cycle over time.

Examples include: avoidance, checking (as in OCD, reassurance-seeking, and over-preparing.

4 Morphing Anxiety

Sometimes anxiety 'jumps' from one topic or context to another, often when the imminent situation is resolved.

It isn't always obvious when it's happening, because your brain insists "no, this is definitely something worth worrying about", even if it wasn't before.

This is common in Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) or Health Anxiety. A particular form shows up with phobias - e.g. where a fear of public transport stops you travelling far from home, or a fear of spiders stops you exploring new places.

5 When Anxiety Becomes a Disorder

Sometimes anxiety can be self-managed through learning and lifestyle. Other times, it can be debilitating.

You may have reached a 'clinical threshold' if your anxiety is:

• Disproportionate to what's happening

• Interfering with your work, relationships, or rest

• Lasting more than a few months; or

• Hard to control or explain.

If any of these are true, it might be time to consider support.

It's not that you're broken. Just that your nervous system is working overtime, and might need some help to be dialled down.

Help isn't about fixing you. It's helping you feel safe enough to stop bracing all the time.

Looking for help with Anxiety? Counselling and Hypnotherapy in Leighton Buzzard can help you. Get in touch now.