Feeling faint, anxiety?

Yes tingling faintness numbness all causes my anxiety. Its to do with the xygen been diverted away from the brain when anxious. Makes you light headed.

Glad you have it under control. Don't let it beat you x

Hello,

Yes, definitely anxiety. Not sure about oxygen being diverted away from the brain? But it's the increase in Carbon dioxide in the bloodstream from hyperventilation, causing you to feel dizzy/faint. During a panic attack (the fight or flight response) your body also tries to make it easier for you to run away, by making you lighter, and that's why people often feel/are sick and need the toilet more.

Trying to slow your breathing down (I know that's the hard bit) will help this.

Hope you feel better soon.

Hi,

Thanks for your replies, it just felt unusual to me because I didn't particularly feel anxious about anything, and I didn't have the usual symptoms that I have experienced before.

Hello again. Yes oxygen is diverted to muscles which is why the digestive system suffers. Also can cause confussion. Hyperventilation actually increases oxygen and floods your brain with it. You should hold your breaths for 5 seconds when you start hyperventilating. Here is a copy paste from a fact site.

Hyperventilation Hyperventilation is common when we are anxious. Taking rapid, shallow breaths can actually increase the blood oxygen level too much. This causes anxietysymptoms such as numbness in the hands, feet, face, and sometimes arms and legs or other areas as well. This also causes anxiety symptoms of lightheadedness, dizziness, and problems with vision. Diversion of blood flow Another cause of numbness is the diversion of blood flow. During fight-or-flight, blood is directed to the large muscles so they are ready for action. In turn, the extremities receive less blood. This can also cause the hands and feet to feel cold. Instinctive (primitive brain) survival mode Instinctive changes in thinking occur for survival. Imagine stepping up to the starting line to compete in a race at the Olympics. Would you be thinking about what to say to your boss about an issue at work? Would you be committing to memory the name and favorite color of the athlete beside you? Why not? Because you would need to be totally focused on the task at hand in order to perform your best in the race. Survival mode during anxiety is no different. In a life-and-death situation (which is what your body is perceiving when you're anxious) your body makes sure your mind is in survival mode to allow optimal physical performance. When in survival mode, it is imperative to focus only on keeping the body safe. The higher cognitive (thinking) functions are, in effect, shut off to allow the primitive survival mode to keep us alive. Functions such as learning, memory, complex decision-making, attention and concentration are impaired. When attention is not paid to details, these ideas are not encoded into the brain, and are not committed to memory, leading to what we perceive as memory problems (when in fact, they are attention problems due to the brain's anxiety response). Survival mode frequently causes anxiety symptoms.

Hi Neil, ok thanks for that, that's basically exactly what I described then, lightheadedness and feeling cold.

I do remeber vaguely about blood being diverted to your muscles in fight or flight situations from biology a level!

I can't really explain what could have caused my anxiety though .

Thats why it is so aweful. And when your brain can't find a reason for re assurance you just panic more and more. Eventually you fear anxiety itself without there been a reason just because of how prolonged and terrible you know the experience is

Yeah I know that feeling, have previously spent weeks indoors not going out anywhere for fear of anxiety.

Yes, this can be part of it. Happy happy joy joy. I agree that it's likely caused by weird breathing etc while asleep. I find the Mirtazapine helps, but I still stagger in the middle of the night if I'm moving around. Makes me remember when I was young and drank too much ... seems like only yesterday.

In first aid, they advise us to get our head lower when feeling faint, ie lie back down. You did at least half that by sitting on the floor. Much better than falling over. I hope you don't get this too often. Cheers, David.

Yeah it could partly because of the mirtazapine making me feel lightheaded in the night, i don't normally wake in the night after taking it, but i woke a few times last night because of stomach pains. Yeah i feel that i would have collapsed if i hadn't sat down, even after sitting down i still felt like i would faint for a while before i felt right again, will remember lying down for next time.

Put "stop anxiety panic attacks" in the youtube search bar. Then watch the top video. It's a good technique. It might help you. Very good video in my oppinion

Ok thanks i will check that out!