Sudden Chemical Change Surge-like Feeling
A Sudden Chemical Change Surge-Like Feelings, such as a sudden rush or unexplained surge of chemicals anywhere in or throughout the body, is a common symptom of anxiety disorder. It's an especially common anxiety and panic attack symptom.
Some people are so bothered by the chemical rush feeling that they trigger a panic attack.
This article explains the relationship between anxiety and having a feeling like a sudden chemical change has occurred in the body.
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Common Chemical Change Surge-like Symptom Descriptions Include:
- It feels like a sudden and unexplained surge of chemicals floods the body.
- It feels like your head, neck, arms, hands, fingers, throat, chest, stomach, abdomen, bowels, legs, feet, toes, or any combination thereof, have had a sudden “blood pressure-like” or “chemical-like” surge.
- It feels like one or many parts of the body were suddenly engorged with blood for no apparent reason.
- It feels like a sudden surge of “something” that makes parts of the body feel like they are being “flooded” or under unusual pressure.
- It feels like parts of the body are suddenly flushed with adrenaline or cortisol, and that makes them feel unusually “pressurized.”
- It feels like parts of the body have experienced a sudden surge of fluid or “pressure” that lasts a few moments to minutes and then subsides…only for it to occur again later.
- This symptom can be accompanied by a “hot flash” feeling, a sudden “electrical charge-like” feeling, like the insides of your body are burning up, or any other warm, hot, or flash-like feeling.
- Some people describe it as like having a high-test energy drink like Red Bull suddenly injected into the body.
Chemical change/surge can:
- Occur occasionally, frequently, or persistently.
- Occur any time, day or night, including the middle of the night.
- Precede, accompany, or follow an escalation of other anxiety symptoms or occur by itself.
- Precede, accompany, or follow a period of nervousness, anxiety, fear, and stress, or occur "out of the blue" for no reason.
- Range in intensity from mild, to moderate, to severe.
- Come in waves where it’s strong one moment and eases off the next.
- Occur for a while, subside, and then return for no reason.
- Change from day to day, moment to moment, or remain as a constant background during your struggle with anxiety disorder.
This symptom can seem more noticeable when undistracted, resting, trying to sleep, or waking up.
To see if anxiety might be playing a role in your symptoms, rate your level of anxiety using our free one-minute instant results Anxiety Test, Anxiety Disorder Test, or Hyperstimulation Test.
The higher the rating, the more likely anxiety could be contributing to or causing your anxiety symptoms, including having a chemical change surge-like feeling.
How Does Anxiety Cause The Sudden Chemical Change Surge-like Feelings?
Medical Advisory
Talk to your doctor about all new, changing, persistent, and returning symptoms as some medical conditions and medications can cause anxiety-like symptoms.
When chemical change surge-like feelings are solely attributed to anxiety, here are some of the most common causes:
1. Active Stress Response
Anxious behavior, such as worry, activates the stress response. The stress response secretes stress hormones, which are powerful stimulants, into the bloodstream where they travel to targeted spots to bring about specific physiological, psychological, and emotional changes that give the body a boost of energy and resources to deal with a threat—to either fight or flee.
This survival reaction is often referred to as the fight or flight response, the emergency response, the fight, flight, or freeze response (some people freeze when they are afraid like a “deer caught in headlights”), or the fight, flight, freeze, or faint response (since some people faint when they are afraid) [1][2].
Visit our “Stress Response” article for more information about the many body-wide changes it causes.
Some of the stress response changes include:
- Quickly converts the body’s energy reserves into “fuel” (blood sugar) so that we have an instant boost of energy.
- Increases heart rate, respiration, and metabolism due to the boost in energy.
- Stimulates the nervous system, increasing nervous system activity.
- Heightens most of the body’s senses.
- Shunts blood to parts of the body more vital to survival, such as the brain, arms, legs, and vital organs, and away from parts less vital for survival, such as the stomach, digestive system, and skin.
Any one or combination of these changes can cause a sudden “surge of blood” and “pressure-like” feelings anywhere in the body, including the brain, chest, and stomach.
Many anxious people feel “butterflies in the stomach” or a “warm feeling in the stomach” the moment a stress response activates.
The higher the degree of anxiety and stress response, the more pronounced the feeling.
As such, having a “chemical change” or “pressure-like” feeling in parts of the body is a common anxiety sensation. For instance:
The stress response changes blood pressure. Consequently, a sudden stress response can cause a sudden change in blood pressure, which can be felt like a “chemical surge.”
Moreover, stress hormones alter the relationship between neurotransmitters in the brain, so the brain is better equipped to deal with an emergency.
Some neurotransmitters are increased (such as glutamate), and some are decreased (such as GABA). This sudden change in neurotransmitter relationship can be experienced as a “brain surge.”
Also, blood rushing away from the stomach to the head can be felt as a sudden “chemical change” in the stomach, chest, and head.
Furthermore, stress hormones stimulate the nervous system, which includes the brain. Nervous system stimulation can feel like a “chemical surge” due to the rapid increase in electrical activity in the parts of the nervous system.
Again, any one or combination of stress response changes can cause an acute “chemical change or surge” feeling.
2. Hyperstimulation
When stress responses occur infrequently, the body can recover relatively quickly from the many stress response changes.
However, when stress responses occur too frequently, such as from overly anxious behavior, the body doesn’t completelyrecover.
Incomplete recovery can leave the body in a state of semi-stress response readiness, which we call “stress-response hyperstimulation” since stress hormones are stimulants.
Hyperstimulation is also often referred to as “hyperarousal,” “HPA axis dysfunction,” or “nervous system dysregulation” [3][4].
Visit our “Hyperstimulation” article for more information about the many ways hyperstimulation can affect the body and how we feel.
Hyperstimulation can cause the changes of an active stress response even though a stress response hasn’t been activated.
Just as an active stress response can cause acute chemical change/surge symptoms, hyperstimulation can cause frequent chemical change/surge symptoms.
As long as the body is hyperstimulated, even slightly, it can cause symptoms of any type, number, severity, frequency, duration, and at any time, including this one.
Frequent chemical change/surge symptoms is a common indication of hyperstimulation.
But that’s not all. Hyperstimulation can cause this symptom in other ways. For instance, hyperstimulation can cause:
- Nervous System Excitation and Dysregulation: A chronically stimulated nervous system can act erratically and cause all kinds of nervous, sensory, circulatory, skeletal, muscular, somatic, and vestibular (equilibrium) system problems, causing a wide range of symptoms, including this one.
- Homeostatic Dysregulation: Homeostasis is the body’s ability to automatically maintain a stable internal environment despite changes in the external environment. Hyperstimulation can cause homeostatic dysregulation, leading to internal regulation problems, affecting the nervous, sensory, circulatory, skeletal, muscular, somatic, and vestibular systems, leading to chemical change/surge symptoms.
- Hormone changes: Hormones play a crucial role in homeostasis and many bodily functions, which can affect all bodily systems. Since stress hormones affect other hormones, hyperstimulation can cause nervous, sensory, circulatory, skeletal, somatic, and vestibular system problems, causing various symptoms, including chemical change/surge symptoms.
- Sleep disruption and fatigue: Hyperstimulation can interfere with sleep and tax the body’s energy resources harder and faster than normal. Sleep disruption and fatigue can also affect many bodily systems, causing various symptoms, including chemical change/surge symptoms.
As long as the body is hyperstimulated, it can exhibit frequent and chronic symptoms, including chemical change/surge symptoms, at any time of day or night.
Again, chemical change/surge symptoms are a common indication of hyperstimulation and how it can affect the body.
Other Factors
Other factors can create stress and cause anxiety-like symptoms, as well as aggravate existing anxiety symptoms, including:
- Medication
- Recreational drugs
- Stimulants
- Sleep deprivation
- Fatigue
- Hyper and hypoventilation
- Low blood sugar
- Nutritional deficiencies
- Dehydration
- Hormone changes
- Pain
Select the relevant link for more information.
Treatment
When this symptom is caused or aggravated by other factors, addressing those factors can reduce and eliminate it.
When this symptom is caused by anxious behavior and active stress response, ending the stress response will end its changes. This symptom should subside as your body recovers from the active stress response.
Keep in mind it can take up to 20 minutes or more for the body to recover from a major stress response. But this is normal and shouldn’t be a cause for concern.
When this symptom is caused by hyperstimulation (chronic stress), eliminating hyperstimulation will cause this anxiety symptom to subside.
You can eliminate hyperstimulation by:
- Reducing stress.
- Containing anxious behavior (since anxiety creates stress).
- Regular deep relaxation.
- Avoiding stimulants.
- Regular light to moderate exercise.
- Getting regular good sleep.
- Eating a healthy diet of whole and natural foods.
- Passively-accepting your symptoms until they subside.
- Being patient as your body recovers.
Visit our “60 Natural Ways To Reduce Stress” article for more ways to reduce stress.
As the body recovers from hyperstimulation, it stops sending symptoms of hyperstimulation, including chemical change surge-like feelings anywhere in or on the body.
Hyperstimulation symptoms subside as the body regains its normal, non-hyperstimulated health.
However, eliminating hyperstimulation can take much longer than most people think, causing symptoms to linger longer than expected.
As long as the body is even slightly hyperstimulated, it can present symptoms of any type, number, intensity, duration, frequency, and at any time, including this one.
Even so, since a chemical change surge-like feeling is a common symptom of stress, including anxiety-caused stress, it's harmless and needn't be a cause for concern. It will subside when unhealthy stress has been eliminated and the body has had sufficient time to recover and stabilize. Therefore, there is no reason to worry about it.
Anxiety symptoms often linger because:
- The body is still being stressed (from stressful circumstances or anxious behavior).
- Your stress hasn't diminished enough or for long enough.
- Your body hasn't completed its recovery work.
Addressing the reason for lingering symptoms will allow the body to recover.
Most often, lingering anxiety symptoms ONLY remain because of the above reasons. They AREN'T a sign of a medical problem. This is especially true if you have had your symptoms evaluated by your doctor and they have been solely attributed to anxiety or stress.
Chronic anxiety symptoms subside when hyperstimulation is eliminated. As the body recovers and stabilizes, all chronic anxiety symptoms slowly diminish and eventually disappear.
Since worrying and becoming upset about anxiety symptoms stress the body, these behaviors can interfere with recovery.
Passively accepting your symptoms – allowing them to persist without reacting to, resisting, worrying about, or fighting them – while doing your recovery work will cause their cessation in time.
Acceptance, practice, and patience are key to recovery.
Since the body can take a long time to recover from hyperstimulation, it's best to faithfully work at your recovery despite the lack of apparent progress.
However, if you persevere with your recovery work, you will succeed.
You also have to do your recovery work FIRST before your body can recover. The cumulative effects of your recovery work will produce results down the road. And the body's stimulation has to diminish before symptoms can subside.
Eliminating hyperstimulation will bring results in time!
Remember: Focusing on your sensations and symptoms makes them more pronounced. If you'd like to lessen their impact, learn to focus your attention elsewhere through distraction, enjoying your hobbies, undertaking pleasing and calming activities, regular deep relaxation, and recalling pleasant memories or experiences.
Therapy
Unidentified and unaddressed underlying factors cause issues with anxiety. As such, they are the primary reason why anxiety symptoms persist.[5][6][7]
Addressing your underlying factors (Level Two recovery) is most important if you want lasting success.
Addressing Level Two recovery can help you:
- Contain anxious behavior.
- Become unafraid of anxiety symptoms and the strong feelings of anxiety.
- End anxiety symptoms.
- Successfully address the underlying factors that so often cause issues with anxiety.
- End what can feel like out-of-control worry.
All our recommended anxiety therapists have had anxiety disorder and overcame it. Their personal experience with anxiety disorder and their Master's Degree and above professional training gives them insight other therapists don't have.
If you want to achieve lasting success over anxiety disorder, any one of our recommended therapists would be a good choice.
Working with an experienced anxiety disorder therapist is the most effective way to treat anxiety disorder.
In many cases, working with an experienced therapist is the only way to overcome stubborn anxiety.
Prevalence
In an online poll we conducted, just over 80 percent of respondents said they had chemical change surge-like feelings due to their anxiety disorder.
However, because anxiety symptoms are described in subjective terms, this common symptom might not be described as a “chemical change or surge” but as a “brain surge,” “electric pulsing,” “hot flash,” and so on.
Common Anxiety Symptoms
Additional Resources
- For a comprehensive list of Anxiety Disorders Symptoms Signs, Types, Causes, Diagnosis, and Treatment.
- Anxiety and panic attacks symptoms can be powerful experiences. Find out what they are and how to stop them.
- How to stop an anxiety attack and panic.
- Free online anxiety tests to screen for anxiety. Two minute tests with instant results. Such as:
- Anxiety 101 is a summarized description of anxiety, anxiety disorder, and how to overcome it.
Return to our anxiety disorders signs and symptoms page.
anxietycentre.com: Information, support, and therapy for anxiety disorder and its symptoms, including a Sudden Chemical Change Surge-like Feeling anxiety symptoms.
References
1. Folk, Jim, and Liashko, Vitaly. “The Stress Response." anxietycentre.com, retrieved May 2022.
2. Godoy, Livea, et al. "A Comprehensive Overview on Stress Neurobiology: Basic Concepts and Clinical Implications." Frontiers In Behavioral Neuroscience, 3, July 2018.
3. Teixeira, Renata Roland, et al. “Chronic Stress Induces a Hyporeactivity of the Autonomic Nervous System in Response to Acute Mental Stressor and Impairs Cognitive Performance in Business Executives.” Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports., U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2015.
4. Yaribeygi, Habib, et al. “The Impact of Stress on Body Function: A Review.” EXCLI Journal, Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, 2017.
5. Hofmann, Stefan G., et al. “The Efficacy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: A Review of Meta-Analyses.” Cognitive Therapy and Research, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 1 Oct. 2012.
6. Leichsenring, Falk. “Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy the Gold Standard for Psychotherapy?” JAMA, American Medical Association, 10 Oct. 2017.
7. DISCLAIMER: Because each body is somewhat chemically unique, and because each person will have a unique mix of symptoms and underlying factors, recovery results may vary. Variances can occur for many reasons, including due to the severity of the condition, the ability of the person to apply the recovery concepts, and the commitment to making behavioral change.