Numbness Tingling and Anxiety

Written by Jim Folk

Medically reviewed by Marilyn Folk, BScN.

Last updated September 17, 2024

Numbness, tingling, paresthesia feelings, feeling like your skin is anesthetized, feeling like a part of your body is numb, and having a tingling sensation anywhere on or in the body are common anxiety symptoms, especially anxiety and panic attack symptoms.

Many anxious people get numbness and tingling symptoms due to their anxiety.

This article explains the relationship between anxiety and numbness and tingling symptoms.

Numbness Tingling (Sensory loss; Paresthesia; Numbness and Tingling; Loss of sensation) common symptom descriptions:

It feels like your skin is numb, tingling, or both.
It can feel like a part of the skin or body has lost sensation (sensory loss).
It can feel like your skin feels numb to the touch.
It feels like your skin, muscle(s), or any part of the body has been frozen or anesthetized.
It can also feel as if your skin, muscle(s), or body part has a numbing "crawly" sensation.
Some people experience such numbness that even pricking the skin with a pin produces little pain and seemingly much less than usual.
Your skin can feel numb to the touch or tingling under the surface, yet there are no visible marks of injury.
This symptom can feel like you have peripheral neuropathy where the body part feels numb to the touch and is sensationless.
This numb patch may be small or encompass many parts of the body, such as an arm, hand, finger, face, mouth, lips, tongue, leg, foot, or toe, or all of them.

This numb and tingling feeling can affect the skin or muscles in your arms, hands, fingers, toes, legs, feet, head, face, stomach, mouth, tongue, lips, or anywhere on or in the body.

This numb and tingling feeling can only affect one area, shift and affect another area or area, and migrate all over and affect many areas.

This common anxiety symptom can occur anywhere on or in the body and can affect all parts of the body or a part of a part. For instance, the entire tongue can feel numb or just part of the tongue, like the tip. Or, both lips can be affected or just part of a lip, and so on.

Numbness and tingling 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 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.

All the above combinations and variations are common.

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.

Causes

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.

Additional Medical Advisory Information.

Numbness and tingling can be caused by many factors including:

Remaining in the same position (seated or standing) for a long time.
Injury or pressure on a nerve (for example, a back injury can cause numbness in the legs or feet, and a neck injury can cause numbness in the arms and hands).
Pressure on the spinal nerves (for example, due to a herniated disk).
Lack of blood supply to an area (for example, restricted blood flow–we often refer to it as “falling asleep,” or for medical reason such as, plaque buildup from atherosclerosis–this can cause pain, numbness, and tingling).
Side effects from certain medications.
A lack of vitamin B12 or other vitamins.
From radiation therapy.
Toxic action on the nerves, such as from alcohol, tobacco, or lead.
Abnormal levels of calcium, potassium, or sodium in the body.

Numbness and tingling can also be caused by medical conditions, including:

Carpal tunnel syndrome
Diabetes
Migraines
Multiple sclerosis
Seizures
Stroke
Transient ischemic attack (TIA)
Underactive thyroid

Why does anxiety cause numbness and tingling symptoms?

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 targeted locations to bring about specific physiological, psychological, and emotional changes that enhance the body’s ability to deal with a threat—to fight or flee. This survival reaction is often referred to as the fight or flight response [1][2][3][4].

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

Many of the stress response changes can cause a numbness and tingling feeling. For instance, the stress response:

Shunts blood to parts of the body 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. It accomplishes this by constricting blood vessels in certain parts of the body and dilating them in others. This shunting action can cause a numbness and tingling sensation anywhere on or in the body, especially the body parts where blood is shunted away.

Tightens muscles to make the body more resilient to injury. Tight muscles can constrict blood flow, causing a numbness and tingling feeling. Tight muscles can also put pressure on nerve pathways, causing numbness and tingling sensations on the affected body parts.

Quickly converts the body’s energy reserves into “fuel” (blood sugar) to provide an instant boost of energy. An instant boost of energy can increase heart rate, respiration, and metabolism. Increased respiration can lead to hyperventilation, causing numbness and tingling sensations.

Heightens most of the body’s senses to be more aware of danger. Increased sensory awareness can make it appear that certain body parts have become numb or tingle.

Increases perspiration to keep the body cool and expel toxins. Increased perspiration can also cause a numbness and tingling feeling.

Stimulates the sympathetic nervous system, increasing nervous system activity to be more sensitive and reactive to danger. Increased nervous system activity can also make it feel like certain body parts are numb or tingling.

The degree of stress response is proportional to the degree of anxious behavior. The more anxious you are, the more dramatic the stress response changes.

As long as a stress response is active, we can experience acute numbness and tingling symptoms.

2. Hyperstimulation

Frequently activating the stress response, such as from overly anxious behavior, 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.”[5][6][7]

Visit our “Hyperstimulation” article for more information about the many ways hyperstimulation can affect the body and how we feel.

Hyperstimulation can cause changes of an active stress response even though a stress response hasn’t been activated. Experiencing skin numbness and tingling feelings are common indications of hyperstimulation.

As long as the body is hyperstimulated, it can produce chronic symptoms, numbness and tingling.

Hyperstimulation can cause chronic symptoms in other ways, too. For instance:

Nervous system dysregulation

Hyperstimulation can overly tax the sympathetic nervous system, causing it to act erratically. Erratic nervous system behavior can cause many “odd” symptoms, such as numbness and tingling even though there isn’t an obvious medical cause.

Chronically suppressed immune system

Stress responses suppress the immune system and shunt blood away from the skin. A chronically suppressed immune system and altered blood flow due to hyperstimulation can allow intruders (bacteria and viruses) to take hold. Irritations, rashes, and infections can cause numbness and tingling sensations.

Research has found a direct link between chronic stress (hyperstimulation) and skin problems and symptoms. [8][9][10]

Hormone changes

Hyperstimulation can affect many of the body’s hormones, causing hormone fluctuations, which can also cause many odd sensations, such as numbness and tingling [6][7].

Any combination of the above can cause odd and bizarre sensory sensations and feelings, including numbness and tingling.

As long as the body is hyperstimulated, even slightly, it can cause symptoms of any type, number, severity, frequency, duration, and at any time.

I (Jim Folk) had numbness and tingling, too, and a lot when I struggled with anxiety disorder. I know how unsettling these feelings can be.

But this symptom isn’t harmful and isn’t an indication of a serious medical problem. Therefore, it needn’t be a cause for concern.

3. Other Factors

Other factors can create stress and cause anxiety-like symptoms, as well as aggravate existing anxiety symptoms, including:

Select the relevant link for more information.

How to get rid of numbness and tingling anxiety symptoms?

When other factors cause or aggravate numbness and tingling, addressing the specific cause can reduce and eliminate this symptom.

When an active stress response causes this symptom, ending the active stress response will end this symptom.

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 needn’t be a cause for concern.

When hyperstimulation (chronic stress) causes numbness and tingling, eliminating hyperstimulation will cause this symptom to subside.

You can eliminate hyperstimulation by:

Reducing stress.
Containing anxious behavior (since anxiety creates stress).
Regular deep relaxation.
Avoiding stimulants.
Regular good sleep (between 6 to 8 hours per night).
Regular light to moderate exercise.
Increasing rest – taking sufficient time to calm the body.
Eating a healthy diet of whole and natural foods.
Passively accepting your symptoms until they subside.
Being patient as your body recovers.
Not reacting to your anxiety symptoms, since reacting stresses the body.

Visit our “60 Natural Ways To Reduce Stress” article for more ways to reduce stress.

As the body recovers from hyperstimulation (chronic stress), it stops sending symptoms, including this one.

Symptoms of chronic stress 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 numbness and tingling are common symptoms 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. 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 finished recovering.

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 more serious medical problem. This is especially true if you have had your symptoms evaluated by your doctor and there isn’t a medical cause.

Chronic anxiety symptoms subside when hyperstimulation is eliminated. As the body recovers and stabilizes, all chronic anxiety symptoms will slowly diminish and eventually disappear.

Since worrying and becoming upset about anxiety symptoms create stress, 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.

Keep in mind that it can take a long time for the body 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.

Reducing stress.
Increasing rest.
Faithfully practicing your recovery strategies.
Passively accepting your symptoms.
Containing anxious behavior.
Being patient.

These will bring results in time.

When you do the right work, the body has to recover!

You can also visit our tingling, tingly, pins and needles anxiety symptom for more information.

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 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. [11][12][13]

In many cases, working with an experienced therapist is the only way to overcome stubborn anxiety.

Numbness and Tingling Frequent Questions

How long does anxiety numbness last?

Anxiety numbness can last a few moments to minutes if it is caused by anxiety and an active stress response, hypo or hyperventilation, or other temporary cause. Or it could persist for days or months if it is caused by hyperstimulation (chronic stress), medication, sleep deprivation, and other long-term cause. However, addressing the cause will eliminate this symptom in time.

Can anxiety numbness last for days?

In some cases, yes. Chronic causes of numbness and tingling, such as chronic stress, medication, and sleep deprivation, can cause chronic numbness and tingling until the cause has been addressed.

How to get rid of anxiety numbness?

Since specific reasons cause numbness and tingling, successfully addressing those reasons will cause numbness and tingling to subside. If you don’t know the specific reasons, connecting with one of our recommended anxiety disorder therapists could be helpful in determining the specific cause(s).

Can anxiety cause numbness on one side of the body?

Anxiety symptoms can occur anywhere on or in the body, including on one side. Many of our Recovery Support members and therapy clients have had numbness or tingling on one side of the body. So yes, anxiety can cause numbness and tingling on one side of the body.

Can anxiety cause neuropathy symptoms?

Yes, anxiety can cause neuropathy-like symptoms. Because anxiety can dramatically affect the nervous system, neurological-like symptoms are common symptoms of anxiety.

Can generalized anxiety disorder cause tingling?

Yes, since anxiety can cause tingling symptoms, any type of anxiety can cause tingling, including generalized anxiety disorder.

What causes numbness and tingling in arms and hands?

There are many causes of numbness and tingling in the arms and hands. That’s why it’s a good idea to discuss your symptoms with your doctor. But anxiety is also a common cause of numbness and tingling in the arms and hands.

What causes tingling throughout the body?

There are many causes of numbness and tingling throughout the body. That’s why it’s a good idea to discuss your symptoms with your doctor. But anxiety, especially anxiety-caused hyperstimulation, is also a common cause of numbness and tingling throughout the body.

Prevalence

In an online poll we conducted, 74 percent of respondents said they had numbness and tingling due to their anxiety.

Common Anxiety Symptoms

The combination of good self-help information and working with an experienced anxiety disorder therapist, coach, or counselor is the most effective way to address anxiety and its many symptoms. Until the core causes of anxiety are addressed – which we call the underlying factors of anxiety – a struggle with anxiety unwellness can return again and again. Dealing with the underlying factors of anxiety is the best way to address problematic anxiety.

Available Therapists

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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 Numbness and Tingling Anxiety Symptoms.

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. Mariotti, Agnese. “The Effects of Chronic Stress on Health: New Insights into the Molecular Mechanisms of Brain–Body Communication.” Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports., U.S. National Library of Medicine, Nov. 2015.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. Justice, Nicholas J., et al. “Posttraumatic Stress Disorder-Like Induction Elevates β-Amyloid Levels, Which Directly Activates Corticotropin-Releasing Factor Neurons to Exacerbate Stress Responses.” Journal of Neuroscience, Society for Neuroscience, 11 Feb. 2015.

8. Nishitani, Naoko, and Sakakibara, Hisataka. "Association of Psychological Stress Response of Fatigue with White Blood Cell Count in Male Daytime Workers." Industrial Health, 27 June 2014.

9. Ghada A. Bin Saif, MD, et al. “Association of psychological stress with skin symptoms among medical students.” Saudi Medical Journal, January 2018.

10. Peters, Eva M.J. “Stressed Skin? – a Molecular Psychosomatic Update on Stress‐Causes and Effects in Dermatologic Diseases.” JDDG: Journal Der Deutschen Dermatologischen Gesellschaft, Wiley/Blackwell (10.1111), 12 Mar. 2016.

11. 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.

12. Leichsenring, Falk. “Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy the Gold Standard for Psychotherapy?” JAMA, American Medical Association, 10 Oct. 2017.

13. 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.