Earaches, Shooting Pains in the Ear and Anxiety
Earaches and Shooting Ear Pains, such as unexplained earaches or shooting pains in the ears, which can feel like the pain is behind the ear and in the head, are common anxiety symptoms, including anxiety and panic attack symptoms.
This article explains the relationship between anxiety and acute or chronic earaches and shooting pains in the ear or ears.
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Common Earaches and Shooting Pains in the Ear Anxiety Symptoms Descriptions
- Unexplained shooting pain in your ear or what feels like behind the ear. This shooting pain can be sharp and momentary, can be a dull ache, or can alternate between a sharp shooting pain and a dull lingering ache.
- An intermittent sharp, shooting pain or earache.
- An earache for no apparent reason.
- An unusual pressure or ache in or behind the ear. It can also feel like your earache is inside the head.
- Intermittent shooting pains in the ear or what feels like behind the ear inside the head.
- Intermittent sharp or dull ear pain.
- Chronic earaches or pains, even though your doctor said there isn’t an ear infection and no medical reasons for them.
This symptom can affect one ear only, shift and affect the other ear, affect both ears, and migrate back and forth between ears.
Earaches and pains 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.
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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.
The ear, an organ, comprises a complex system of nerves, muscles, bones, and pressure intricately organized to provide sound and balance information to the brain. Because of its complexity, diagnosing ear-related problems can be difficult.
For example, there can be many causes of this symptom, such as exposure to loud sounds, age, injury to the ear, ear wax buildup, an adverse reaction to medication, high blood pressure, sinus or ear infection, and various other medical causes. Because of the many causes, it’s important to discuss this symptom with your doctor to rule out a medical cause.
Earaches and shooting ear pains can be caused by stress, including anxiety-caused stress. Here are some reasons why:
- Stress can change the pressure in the ear,[1] can change the fluid composition in the ear,[2] and can affect auditory nerve function.[3] Any of these changes can cause shooting pains and earaches in the ear and what can feel like behind the ear inside the head.
- Stress, including anxiety-caused stress, tightens muscles [4][5], including those in the head, face, and neck. Tight head, face, and neck muscles can put pressure on the ear and change ear pressure, which can cause earaches and shooting pains in the ear.
- Stress also suppresses the immune system [6]. Chronic immune system suppression, such as from hyperstimulation (chronic stress), can allow intruders to invade the body, causing infection, including infection in the ear that can lead to earaches and shooting pains.
- Anxious and stressed people often clench their jaws and grind their teeth, which can further tighten muscles and cause earaches and shooting pains.
- Anxiety can lead to hyperstimulation, causing nervous system excitation and dysregulation, homeostatic dysregulation, and hormone changes [7][8], all of which can affect ear pressure, leading to earaches and shooting pains.
Any of these reasons can cause earaches and shooting pains.
I (Jim Folk) experienced this symptom, too, and in many ways when I was struggling with anxiety disorder. Sometimes, one ear ached and had shooting pains; sometimes, both were affected. Sometimes, the aches and shooting pains were sudden and then stopped. Other times, they felt like I had a dull ache that lingered and was accompanied by various shooting pains.
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.
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Treatment
When this symptom is caused or aggravated by other factors, addressing those factors can reduce and eliminate acute and chronic earaches and shooting pains in the ears.
When hyperstimulation (chronic stress) causes chronic earaches and shooting pains in the ears, eliminating hyperstimulation will end this anxiety symptom.
You can eliminate hyperstimulation by:
- Reducing stress.
- Containing anxious behavior (since anxiety creates stress).
- Regular deep relaxation.
- Avoiding stimulants.
- Regular light to moderate exercise.
- 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.
Recovery Support members can view chapters 5, 6, 7, 14 and more for more detailed information about recovering from hyperstimulation and anxiety disorder.
As the body recovers from hyperstimulation, it stops sending symptoms of hyperstimulation, including acute and chronic earaches and shooting pains in the ears.
NOTE: Some people find that reducing the consumption of salt, getting regular mild to moderate exercise, and getting good sleep helps to reduce this symptom.
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.[9][10][11]
In many cases, working with an experienced therapist is the only way to overcome stubborn anxiety.
Research has shown that therapy is the most effective treatment for anxiety disorder, and distance therapy (via phone or the Internet) is equally, if not more effective, than face-to-face in-person therapy.[12][13][14]
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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 Earaches, Shooting Pains in the Ear anxiety symptoms.
References
1. Horner, K C. “The Emotional Ear in Stress.” NCBI - PubMed, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Aug. 2003.
2. Juhn, S K, et al. “Effect of Stress-Related Hormones on Inner Ear Fluid Homeostasis and Function.” U.S. National Library of Medicine, Nov. 1999.
3. Ray Moon, Kyung, et al. "Effects of Anxiety Sensitivity and Hearing Loss on Tinnitus Symptom Severity." Psychiatry Investigation, 16 Jan. 2018.
4. Chu, Brianna, et al. “Physiology, Stress Reaction.” StatPearls, 7 May 2024.
5. Godoy, Livea, et al. "A Comprehensive Overview on Stress Neurobiology: Basic Concepts and Clinical Implications." Frontiers In Behavioral Neuroscience, 3, July 2018.
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. 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.
8. Marks, David. "Dyshomeostasis, obesity, addiction and chronic stress." Health Psychology Open, Jan 2016.
9. 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.
10. Leichsenring, Falk. “Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy the Gold Standard for Psychotherapy?” JAMA, American Medical Association, 10 Oct. 2017.
11. 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.
12. Kingston, Dawn.“Advantages of E-Therapy Over Conventional Therapy.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 11 Dec. 2017.
13. Markowitz, John, et al. “Psychotherapy at a Distance.” Psychiatry Online, March 2021.
14. Thompson, Ryan Baird, "Psychology at a Distance: Examining the Efficacy of Online Therapy" (2016). University Honors Theses. Paper 285.