Chest Tightness Anxiety Symptoms
Anxiety chest tightness, including chest pressure, tension, fullness, pain, and shooting pains are common symptoms of anxiety disorder, especially anxiety and panic attack symptoms.
Many anxious people get chest tightness and chest pains due to their anxiety.
This article explains the relationship between anxiety and chest tightness symptoms.
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Common Chest Tightness Anxiety Symptom Descriptions
- An unusual tightness or pressure in your chest.
- An unusual pain or shooting pains in your chest.
- Sharp stabbing pains in your chest.
- Feels like your chest muscles are unusually tight or tense.
- Feels like a chest muscle or muscles are twitching, trembling, or stabbing.
- Feels like a burning, numbness, an uneasiness, or fullness in the chest area.
- Feels like a “heaviness” in your chest.
- A gripping feeling.
- A stabbing pain that comes out of nowhere.
- A tension, pressure, gripping feeling, stabbing pain, muscle tension, burning, numbness, an uneasiness, or a fullness in the chest and diaphragm areas—a sheet of internal muscle that extends across the bottom of the rib cage.
The chest area includes the diaphragm (a sheet of internal muscle that extends across the bottom of the rib cage), sternum (often referred to as the breastbone in the center of the chest), breast muscles, and rib cage.
This chest tightness may be located in one, a few, or many spots in the chest area, or may move all over the chest area. The chest tightness may radiate to one or both shoulders; into the breasts; into the rib cage; into the sides of the abdomen; into the neck, throat, jaw, and head; and/or can be felt in the back and stomach areas.
This chest tightness feeling can also feel worse after eating, and cause a shortness of breath feeling.
Anxiety chest tightness can be experienced as a dull, sharp, stabbing, piercing tightness or pain and as persistent tightness, pressure, fullness, or numbness.
Anxiety chest tightness symptoms can:
- Occur occasionally, frequently, or persistently.
- 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 slight, 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 when waking up.
All the above combinations and variations are common.
This type of chest tightness is commonly misconstrued as heart problems or the signs of a heart attack.
This symptom is often referred to as Non-cardiac Chest Pain (NCCP).
Chest tightness is also associated with anxiety chest pain.
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 feeling like impending doom symptoms.
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What causes anxiety chest tightness?
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.
1. The effects of the stress response
Behaving anxiously activates the body’s stress response. The stress response secretes stress hormones into the bloodstream where they travel to targeted spots to bring about specific physiological, psychological, and emotional changes that enhance the body’s ability to deal with a threat—to either fight with or flee from it. This survival reaction is the reason why it’s often referred to as the fight or flight response, the emergency response, or the fight, flight, or freeze response (some people freeze when they are afraid like a “deer caught in headlights”).[1][2][3][4]
A part of the stress response changes causes muscles in the body to contract and tighten in an attempt to protect the body from harm. Because there are many muscles in the chest, stomach, rib cage, neck, and throat areas, these muscles can tighten, too.
As our anxiety increases, so can these changes and their degrees. The more anxious you are, the tighter these muscles become. Muscle tension can lead to tightness and pain, including the muscles in the chest and nearby areas.
To make matters worse, many anxious people believe this muscle tightness may be caused by a heart problem or heart attack, which can cause more stress responses and a further increase in chest tightness and pain, as well as other stress and anxiety related symptoms similar to those of a heart attack, such as profuse sweating, light-headedness, and numbness in the arms, feet or face. These increased symptoms may reinforce your belief that you are having a heart attack causing even more fear, symptoms, and even panic.
2. Tightness and pain radiating from the stomach and digestive system
Stomach and digestive system upset can present pain, shooting pain, radiating pain, pressure, fullness, tightness, and discomfort that can be felt in the chest area and may be perceived as heart-related, as well. Stomach and digestive symptoms are also common for stress and anxiety, and can emulate chest tightness, pressure, and pain.
3. The effects of hyperstimulation (chronic stress)
When stress responses occur infrequently, the body can recover relatively quickly from the physiological, psychological, and emotional changes the stress response brings about. When stress responses occur too frequently and/or dramatically, however, such as from overly apprehensive behavior, the body has a more difficult time recovering, which can cause it to remain in a state of semi stress response readiness. We call this state “stress-response hyperstimulation” since stress hormones are stimulants (also often referred to as "hyperarousal").[5][6][7]
Chronic stress (hyperstimulation) can overwork the body’s systems, organs, and glands, which can then present symptoms of being overly stressed. Experiencing "chest tightness and pain" is a common symptom of chronic stress.
When you combine the above factors, it’s plain to see why so many anxious people end up in the emergency room each year due to chest tightness symptoms fearing they are coming from the heart (NCCP).
According to a 2017 review article published in the journal Psychosomatics, one in three people experiences NCCP at some point in their lives. Many experience high levels of anxiety as a result.
For more information about how to “tell the difference between an anxiety attack and a heart attack.”
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Treatment: How to eliminate anxiety chest tightness?
1. End the stress response
When chest tightness is caused by an active stress response (triggered by being anxious, nervous, apprehensive), calming yourself down will bring an end to the stress response. This, in turn, will bring an end to the stress response changes. As your body recovers from the stress response changes, this chest tightness symptom should subside. Keep in mind that 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.
2. Eliminate hyperstimulation
When this symptom is caused by hyperstimulation (chronic stress), it may take a lot more time for the body to recover and to the point where this symptom subsides. We explain this scenario in more detail in the Recovery Support area of our website.
Nevertheless, when the body has fully recovered from being anxious and chronically stressed, this chest tightness symptom completely disappears. Therefore, the anxiety chest tightness symptom needn’t be a cause for concern.
You can speed up the recovery process by reducing your stress, practicing relaxed breathing, increasing your relaxation, and not worrying about this symptom. Again, when your body has recovered from the stress response or chronic stress, this symptom will subside.
3. Short-term strategies:
While the overall goal is to eliminate hyperstimulation so that the body stops producing chest tightness and pain symptoms, some people have found some relief by adopting some of the following strategies:
- Reduce stress – reducing stress can reduce stress-caused muscle tension.
- Regular mild to moderate exercise – can help loosen tight chest and abdomen muscles. As fitness level increases, issues with tight muscles diminish.
- Have a massage – massages are relaxing, which can help loosen tight muscles.
- Relaxed breathing – can relax tight chest muscles.
- Stretching – can relax tight chest muscles.
- Deep relaxation – deeply relaxing the body can help unclench tight stomach and chest muscles.
- Warm to hot bath – soaking in the tub can be relaxing, which can help relax tight muscles.
- Steam bath or sauna – moderately warm steam baths or saunas can also relax tight muscles, including those in the stomach and chest areas.
- Take a leisure walk – leisure walking can reduce stress and tight chest muscles.
- Increase rest – resting helps the body to relax, which can also relax tight muscles.
- Relax chest and stomach muscles – some people tense their stomach and chest muscles, which becomes a habit. Learning to keep them relaxed can help loosen tight stomach and chest muscles.
- Avoid foods that irritate the stomach and digestive system – if certain foods upset your digestive system, avoid them until your body has recovered.
- Be sure you are well hydrated – dehydration can cause muscle tension and pain. Drinking enough fluids so that your urine is almost clear is a way to tell if your body is well hydrated.
- Avoid stimulants – Hyperstimulation means your body is overly stimulated. Ingesting stimulants will just aggravate hyperstimulation and its symptoms, including muscle tension and pain.
Recovery Support
The Recovery Support area of our website contains thousands of pages of important self-help information to help individuals overcome anxiety disorder, hyperstimulation, and symptoms.
Due to the vast amount of information, including a private Discussion Forum, many of our Recovery Support members consider it their online recovery support group.
Therapy
Unidentified and unaddressed underlying factors cause issues with anxiety. As such, they are the primary reason why anxiety symptoms persist.
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 give 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, especially if you have persistent symptoms and difficulty containing anxious behavior, such as worry.[8][9][10][11][12]
In many cases, working with an experienced therapist is the only way to overcome stubborn anxiety.
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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 the anxiety symptom chest tightness.
References
1. Chu, Brianna, et al. “Physiology, Stress Reaction.” StatPearls, 7 May 2024.
2. Godoy, Livea, et al. "A Comprehensive Overview on Stress Neurobiology: Basic Concepts and Clinical Implications." Frontiers In Behavioral Neuroscience, 3, July 2018.
3. Elbers, Jorina, et al. "Wired for Threat: Clinical Features of Nervous System Dysregulation in 80 Children." Pediatric Neurology, Dec 2018.
4. Nicolaides, Nicolas, et al. "Stress, the stress system and the role of glucocorticoids." Neuroimmunomodulation, 2015.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. Hannibal, Kara E., and Mark D. Bishop. “Chronic Stress, Cortisol Dysfunction, and Pain: A Psychoneuroendocrine Rationale for Stress Management in Pain Rehabilitation.” Advances in Pediatrics., U.S. National Library of Medicine, Dec. 2014.
8. 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.
9. Leichsenring, Falk. “Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy the Gold Standard for Psychotherapy?” JAMA, American Medical Association, 10 Oct. 2017.
10. Thompson, Ryan Baird, "Psychology at a Distance: Examining the Efficacy of Online Therapy" (2016). University Honors Theses. Paper 285.
11. Kingston, Dawn.“Advantages of E-Therapy Over Conventional Therapy.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 11 Dec. 2017.
12. 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.