Difficulty Writing and Anxiety

Causes

Anxiety can cause difficulty writing in many ways. Here are the most common:

1. Anxiety-Activated Stress Response

Anxious behavior, such as worry, activates the stress response, which secretes stress hormones into the bloodstream, where they travel to specific locations to immediately prepare the body for emergency action – to fight or flee. This instinctual survival reaction is often referred to as the Fight Or Flight Response.[1][2]

Visit the “Stress Response” article for the many ways the it can affect the body and how we feel.

Many of the stress response changes can cause writing difficulties. For instance, the stress response:

• Increases activity in the fear center of the brain (amygdala and others) and suppresses activity in the executive function areas of the brain (prefrontal cortex and others). This change in brain function directs our attention toward danger detection and reaction and away from thoughts that could be distracting. However, suppressed executive function can impact thinking and coordination, causing problems with writing.
• Stress hormones suppress certain types of memory and our ability to retrieve memories. Suppressed memories and recall can negatively affect writing.
• Increases most of the body’s senses so we can detect and react to danger more quickly. Heightened sensory awareness can distract from cognitive processing, causing problems with thinking and expressing.
• Increases sympathetic nervous system activity to detect and react to danger more quickly. Increased nervous system activity can also interfere with cognitive processing, causing problems with thinking and writing.
• Stress hormones affect other hormones. Fluctuating hormone levels can affect thinking, emotions, and writing.

Any combination of stress hormone changes can adversely affect thinking and ability to express, including writing.

As long as a stress response is active, we can have problems thinking clearly, affecting our ability to write coherently.

An active stress response is a common cause of acute thinking and writing problems.

2. Hyperstimulation

When stress responses occur infrequently, the body recovers relatively quickly from its changes. However, frequently activated stress responses, such as from overly anxious behavior, can prevent the body from completely recovering. Incomplete recovery can leave the body in a state of semi-stress-response-readiness, which we call “stress-response hyperstimulation” since stress hormones are powerful stimulants.

Hyperstimulation is also often referred to as “hyperarousal,” “HPA axis dysfunction,” or “nervous system dysregulation.”[3][4][5][6]

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. Consequently, hyperstimulation can cause chronic thinking and writing difficulties.

But that’s not all. Hyperstimulation can cause these symptoms in other ways. For instance, hyperstimulation can cause:

• Nervous System Excitation and Dysregulation: A chronically excited and dysregulated nervous system can act erratically and cause all kinds of nervous system-related problems, such as difficulty thinking and writing.

• 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, and somatic systems, and causing problems with thinking and writing.

• Hormone changes: Hormones play a crucial role in homeostasis and many bodily functions, which can affect the nervous, sensory, and somatic systems. Since stress hormones affect other hormones, hyperstimulation can cause nervous, sensory, and somatic system problems, such as thinking and coordination problems, which can lead to problems in writing.

Hyperstimulation can cause other symptoms, which can affect thinking and writing, such as:

• Brain fog
• Brain zaps
• Confusion
• Fatigue
• Concentration problems
• Sleep deprivation
• Coordination problems
• Vision impairments
• Equilibrium problems, like dizziness, lightheadedness, and feeling off-balance
• Cognitive impairment
• Dissociation

To name a few. These symptoms can also contribute to writing problems.

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 difficulty thinking and writing.

3. Behavior

Anxious behavior is also a common cause of writing difficulties.

Anxious behavior, such as worry, can distract the mind, causing problems with thinking and writing.

Since anxious behavior activates the stress response, it can compound thinking and writing problems due to the effects of stress hormones on brain function.

A negative cycle can set up where an anxiety-activated stress response causes thinking and writing difficulties. Worrying about thinking and writing difficulties activates more stress responses, causing more thinking and writing difficulties, and so on.

Anxious behavior and the hyperstimulation it causes are common causes and sustainers of thinking and writing difficulties.

4. 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

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