One of the biggest hindrances to overcoming anxiety is lack of understanding about the condition, and in particular how the body can become symptomatic even in the presence of no underlying organic illness.

This lack of understanding was one of the biggest problems I had during my anxiety recovery, and in the early stage I spent a lot of time going to doctors trying to get an answer as to why I had all these horrible symptoms, in the hope I could just pop a pill and get rid of them.

Looking back this was an important stage in my anxiety recovery. I needed to see enough doctors and have enough tests to get to the point where I would accept that they couldn’t all be wrong in their diagnosis.

Equally it was just as important for me to begin to understand just how many various symptoms really could be caused by stress. And the list of potential symptoms really is huge!

I count myself lucky that I got to this stage quickly. Many get stuck in the merry-go-round of seeing doctors fearing that they have some underlying disease. Ironically though this fear of your symptoms and this wanting them to go away actually creates more stress, which then feeds the underlying causes of why they are there in the first place.

So why do these symptoms come about? In my experience, they did actually start because I had a severe detectable viral infection in the first place, but this was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. My lifestyle was already stressful too. In the year preceding the beginning of my illness, I had gotten married, looked after a relative who had cancer, changed job and was growing a business, and my wife and I had just gotten pregnant. I wasn’t a great sleeper either, which didn’t help, and not only that but I had a longstanding habit of training really hard in the gym, which paradoxically had the effect of stressing my nervous system, despite the fact I associated it mentally with keeping healthy!

So when I got the viral infection it was the final thing to throw my body into disarray!

So how do the symptoms arise? Well simply, stress causes the release of stress hormones in the body. If you lead a stressful lifestyle, you tend to trigger these stress hormones more often than most. If you do this enough, it can cause your body to become overstressed, and nervously tired. This is because the body is in a state of breaking itself down when it's fight or flight response is triggered. Too much of this is what causes the symptoms.

Now what keeps the symptoms alive? It can be a combination of things (as it was in my case). Continuing to live a stressful lifestyle will cause the symptoms to persist, but even if you lower your stress levels, your mental thinking plays a massive part. If you don’t believe your doctors, or you fret over your symptoms or if you spend your life searching the internet trying to find out what the cause of your symptoms could be caused by, then you are in a place of unacceptance. This searching and striving places you in a situation where you are resisting your symptoms, stimulating the FIGHT response in your body, and so perpetuating the cycle of your symptoms.

So what is the route to overcoming anxiety?

1) Get the reassurance and the tests that you need to ensure that your symptoms are not organic in nature.

2) Take steps to lower the stress levels in your life.

3) Stop doubting and WANT your symptoms to come!

4) Don't expect the symptoms to go away immediately. It takes time for the body to calm down.

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