Flashing Lights, Eye Flashes, Stars

Causes

When this symptom is caused by stress, including anxiety-caused stress:

1. Anxiety-Activated Stress Response

The eye is a complex organ that, in conjunction with the nervous system (which includes the brain), contains a vast amount of nerve cells. Nerve cells (neurons) are specialized cells that communicate with each other by passing nerve impulse information (electrical signals) back and forth using an electrochemical process (the combination of electricity and chemistry) [1][2].

Neurons send and receive nerve impulse information back and forth to and from the brain. For example, visual information is received in the eye and transmitted through the optic nerve via neurons to the primary visual cortex area of the brain. The brain interprets this information and forms a visual image in the mind [3][4].

Moreover, when we want to look at something, our voluntary thoughts cause nerve impulses in certain muscle groups attached to the eyes. These nerve impulses cause the appropriate eye muscles to contract and cause the eyes to move in the direction we want to look.

When we say there is a vast amount of nerve cells involved in the process of seeing, we mean VAST! One optic nerve alone contains over 1 million nerve fibres, and the nervous system (which includes the brain) contains over 100 billion nerve cells that link to tens of thousands of other nerve cells located throughout the body.

The vision process functions normally when the body and nervous system are healthy. However, problems can occur when the body is stressed.

Stress can be defined as:

• Anything that pushes the body beyond its balance point.
• A state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances [5].
• Subject to pressure or tension.

In a medical or biological context, stress is a physical, mental, or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension. Stresses can be external (from the environment, social situations, etc.) or internal (illness, from a medical procedure, behavior, etc.).

More specifically, 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 [6][7][8][9].

Visit our “Stress Response” article for more information about the many changes it causes.

Stress responses stress the body because all the physiological, psychological, and emotional changes push it beyond its balance point.

Some of the stress response changes include:

• Quickly converts the body’s energy reserves into “fuel” (blood sugar) to instantly boost energy.
• Increases heart rate, respiration, and metabolism due to the boost in energy.
• Stimulates the sympathetic nervous system, increasing nervous system activity to be more sensitive and reactive to danger.
• Heightens most of the body’s senses to be more aware of danger.
• Increases activity in the amygdala (the brain’s fear center) and decreases activity in the prefrontal cortex (the rationalization area of the brain) so that our attention is focused on the threat and away from thoughts that could be distracting.
• Tightens muscles to make the body more resilient to injury.
• Creates a sense of urgency to take action to fight with or flee from the perceived threat.

All these changes enhance our ability to deal with a stressor or threat.

More specifically, stress responses affect vision by:

• Dilating pupils to take in more visual information.
• Narrowing the field of vision (peripheral vision) to focus solely on the threat,
• Reduce blink rate so we don’t miss important visual information.
• Tense and increase blood flow to the eye muscles to be more reactive.

Because of these stress response changes:

• Our vision can seem brighter and more vivid because of pupil dilation.
• Our eyes are more sensitive to light and visual information.
• The optic nerve is more sensitive to visual information.
• We can experience “tunnel vision.”
• Eyes can become dry.
• Eye muscles can feel strained.
• The entire visual system can become fatigued.

Any of the above changes can cause acute visual irregularities, such as unexpected light flashes.

Having flashes of light in your vision is a common symptom of stress, including an anxiety-activated stress response.

2. Effects of Hyperstimulation (Chronic Stress)

Due to the stress caused by an active stress response, the body needs time to recover after the stress response ends. Recovery gives the body time to recharge and rebuild its energy stores so that they are ready for the next time a stress response is required.

When stress responses occur infrequently, the body can recover relatively quickly from the physiological, psychological, and emotional changes the stress response brings about.

However, when stress responses occur too frequently, such as from overly anxious behavior, the body doesn’t completely recover. 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” [10][11][12].

Visit our “Hyperstimulation” article for more information about the many ways hyperstimulation can affect the body and how we feel, including Nervous System Excitation and Dysregulation, Homeostatic Dysregulation, and Hormone Changes.

Hyperstimulation can cause the changes of an active stress response even though a stress response hasn’t been activated, chronically stressing the body.

Chronic stress can cause:

• Eye movement problems due to chronic eye muscle tension.
• Eye, eyelid, and eye muscle twitching from chronic muscle strain.
• Eye strain.
• Chronic light sensitivity.
• Chronic “tunnel vision.”
• Chronic blurred vision.
• Chronic dry eyes.
• Sporadic flashing lights in one or both eyes.
• Any combination of the symptoms above.

Furthermore, hyperstimulation (chronic stress) can cause neurons to become overly stimulated and excited since neurons have an electrochemical makeup that is particularly sensitive to stress.

Neurons that become overly stimulated can act erratically, sending erratic nerve impulse information to and from the brain [13][10]. This erratic nerve impulse information can cause many visual anomalies, such as random flashing lights.

Moreover, because hyperstimulation can cause an increase in the electrical activity in the brain, which can cause neurons to become even more unstable, neurons can fire even more erratically when the body, brain, and nervous system become hyperstimulated [14].

Consequently, hyperstimulation can cause the entire visual system to experience odd and erratic symptoms. As the degree of hyperstimulation increases, so can the likelihood of experiencing visual irregularities, such as those associated with this symptom.

When I (Jim Folk) was struggling with anxiety disorder, I experienced many visual symptoms, such as seeing things out of the corner of my eye that didn’t exist (I could have sworn someone or something passed behind or beside me), seeing shimmering or hazy objects, stars, flashing lights, halo-type images, and kaleidoscope-looking images when I closed my eyes. I was amazed at how many visual symptoms hyperstimulation could cause.

I also experienced tunnel vision, which looked as if I was looking through a tunnel or that it appeared that I had blinders on.

These are just some examples of how hyperstimulation can affect our vision.

Yes, eye-related symptoms, including flashing lights, are common symptoms of acute and chronic stress, including anxiety-caused stress.

3. 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.