Chest pain is a common symptom of anxiety. The pain is often sharp, fleeting, or causes a sudden “catch” that interrupts a breath. The pain felt in the chest wall, caused by intense muscle strain or spasms, can sometimes last for hours or days after the attack.
Chest pain from a heart attack starts slowly and gradually gets worse, while an anxiety attack causes sudden chest pain that slowly improves. Many people find that anxiety-related chest pain goes away in about 10 minutes. However, other anxiety-related symptoms can last up to an hour after the pain improves.
While anxiety chest pain varies from person to person, you may feel a constant, mild sense of discomfort or chest pain that comes and goes throughout the day.
Chest pain due to anxiety or panic attacks can usually feel like a sharp, stabbing sensation that starts suddenly, even if a person is inactive. However, they may be feeling stressed or anxious already before the chest pain begins.
It may also be due to hyperventilation (episodes of rapid or fast breathing), which may cause the muscles of the intercostal chest wall to tense or go into spasm. Anxiety may also lead to esophageal dysmotility which can cause esophageal spasms, which is one of the reasons for chest pain.
Anxiety chest pain can feel different to different people. Symptoms in the chest area can be described as: Sharp, shooting, or stabbing pain. Persistent, dull aching.
Angina tends to radiate, causing referred pain all around the shoulder and neck. Anxiety chest pains/hyperventilation tend to be more localized near the heart. Anxiety chest pains are usually sharper, although not always.
“Often, the chest pain with heart attacks is more of a pressure or squeezing, whereas a lot of people describe their chest pain in panic attacks as more of a sharp or shooting pain,” says Dr. Blackburn.
Chest tightness is an anxiety symptom that often causes a severe amount of distress. That is because chest tightness has a negative connotation that links it to severe health conditions. This can be very daunting for individuals who do not know much about the physical effects of stress and anxiety in their lives.
Noncardiac chest pain can be related to depression, anxiety or stress. Psychotherapy can help you to work through these problems to reduce the occurrence of chest pain. Cognitive behavioral therapy can teach you how to change or eliminate the thought patterns that trigger stress or anxiety.
Signs and Symptoms
Takotsubo cardiomyopathy symptoms follow a period of severe stress, are often indistinguishable from a heart attack and may include: Chest pain (often sudden and intense) Shortness of breath. Rapid or irregular heartbeat.
It can be experienced as a dull, sharp, stabbing, piercing tightness or pain, and/or as persistent tightness, pressure, fullness, or numbness. This chest tightness can precede, accompany, or follow an escalation of other anxiety sensations and symptoms or occur by itself.
See a doctor if chest pain keeps coming back, gets worse, or accompanies other symptoms. Pain that lasts for weeks or months is unlikely to be caused by a life-threatening emergency. The issue is more likely related to the muscles or skeletal structure.
Your throat may also constrict and your chest muscles might tighten. All of these can cause pain in the chest. Most chest pain from stress is temporary and isn't harmful. But a healthcare provider should evaluate symptoms that are severe, frequent, or prolonged.
An anxiety attack generally lasts between 5 and 20 minutes. ⁶ They can occur multiple times in a day and across consecutive days and the symptoms can come in waves. Heart attacks, however, can last from a few minutes to a few hours.
While anxiety-related chest pain can feel different from person to person, it tends to limit itself to the chest alone. On the other hand, most people experiencing heart attack chest pain describe a squeezing, heavy, or aching pain that radiates outward from the chest to the arms, shoulders, back, and/or jaw.
Call 911 or the local emergency number if: You have sudden crushing, squeezing, tightening, or pressure in your chest. Pain spreads (radiates) to your jaw, left arm, or between your shoulder blades. You have nausea, dizziness, sweating, a racing heart, or shortness of breath.
Most heart attacks involve discomfort in the center or left side of the chest that lasts for more than a few minutes or that goes away and comes back. The discomfort can feel like uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness, or pain. Feeling weak, light-headed, or faint.
breathlessness. feeling sick (nausea) pain in your lower chest or belly – similar to indigestion. feeling very tired.
The main symptom of angina is chest pain. This can: feel like a dull pain, ache, 'heavy' or 'tight' feeling in your chest. spread to your arms, neck, jaw or back.
The main symptom of angina is chest pain. Chest pain caused by angina usually: feels tight, dull or heavy – it may spread to your arms, neck, jaw or back. is triggered by physical exertion or stress.
Anxiety-induced chest pain can feel like: a sharp or stabbing pain that makes it momentarily harder to breathe. pain in one side of your chest — especially the left side. a sense of tightness or heaviness in your chest.
A sense of dread. Worried or tense. Neglected or lonely. Existing mental health problems getting worse.