Why Do I Still Have Anxiety Symptoms?

Video Transcript

I’ve been following your advice for a few years, but I still have a lot of symptoms. All my medical tests came back normal, and my doctor said my symptoms are caused by anxiety. If these are anxiety symptoms, why do I still have a lot of them even though I’ve been following your advice for a few years?

Many medical conditions and medications can cause anxiety-like symptoms. That's’ why we recommend discussing all new, changing, persistent, and returning symptoms with your doctor to ensure your symptoms are solely anxiety related.

Since you’ve done that and your doctor has attributed your symptoms to anxiety, you can feel confident there isn’t another cause.

As for why you still have anxiety symptoms, there can be many reasons. Two of the most common reasons for lingering anxiety symptoms include:

1. Your body is still stressed.

Anxiety symptoms are symptoms of stress. They are called anxiety symptoms because overly anxious behavior, which stresses the body, is the main source of the stress that’s causing symptoms.

Consequently, anxiety symptoms will linger as long as the body is stressed.

If you reduce stress sufficiently and for long enough, your body has to recover. As it recovers from unhealthy stress, you should see all your symptoms subside.

Since you still have symptoms, your body is still somewhat stressed.

Identifying and addressing the areas causing your elevated stress will get your symptom-elimination efforts back on track.

2. Unresolved underlying factors

Unidentified and unaddressed underlying factors are the most common cause of lingering anxiety symptoms. Unaddressed underlying factors will keep your body stressed despite your best efforts to eliminate stress.

If you’ve been working diligently at reducing your stress, yet you still have anxiety symptoms, you likely have underlying factors that need addressing.

Working at Level Two recovery with an experienced anxiety disorder therapist is the most effective way to successfully identify and address anxiety’s underlying factors.

In most cases, lingering anxiety symptoms are most often caused by one or both of the above factors. Addressing the cause will get your recovery efforts back on track.

For more information:

• Two Levels of Recovery
• Why do you recommend therapy?
• Common underlying factors that create problems with anxiety.