Have you ever experienced such feelings sometimes when you are alone, or among people, and suddenly, your hand starts tingling?
A sensation of pins and needles spreads up your arm, or maybe your lips begin to feel numb. Your brain starts an alarm with the worst thoughts: Am I having a stroke? Is something severely wrong?
This frightening sensation has a medical name called paresthesia. For many people, this tingling, prickling, or numbness in anxiety is not a sign of a neurological emergency, but a surprising physical symptom of panic.
This appearance of paresthesia alongside a sudden, racing heart, difficult breathing, and overwhelming fear creates a terrifying cycle. The strange physical feeling triggers intense worry, and that worry spikes your anxiety.
This is making a physical feeling even worse.
In this article, we will explain why your body does this during times of high stress, validate the scary experience you feel, and give you practical tools to manage these confusing symptoms. And at the end, we suggest treatment options.
Why Does Anxiety Make Your Skin Tingle?
Why does a purely emotional state like anxiety cause such distinct physical symptoms? To understand this, we must look at the body’s innate survival system, the fight-or-flight response.
When you feel anxious or are experiencing panic, your body’s sympathetic nervous system (a network of nerves that controls your “fight-or-flight” response) goes up. It prepares you to run from danger or prepare for a threat. Even if the perceived threat is just a worried thought about work or money. Your survival mechanism reacts as if you were facing a predator, and your body goes into hyperventilation.
What Is Hyperventilation, And Its Role In Paresthesia
One of the most immediate and common causes of anxiety-related paresthesia is hyperventilation or breathing that is too rapid or too slow.
When you panic, you instinctively take quick, shallow breaths. The rapid, shallow breaths that a person takes when in a panic are an attempt to get more oxygen. However, this quick air movement actually disrupts the proper gas balance in the bloodstream because you have breathed out too much carbon dioxide.
Brain Chemical Imbalance
Carbon dioxide is necessary to keep the blood’s chemical balance, or pH level, in the blood. When carbon dioxide levels fall too low, the blood becomes slightly more alkaline. This subtle change affects how nerves work.
Physical Symptoms
This nerve function change causes the common symptoms of numbness and tingling. These sensations often appear in the fingers, toes, and around the jaw. This physical reaction is a direct chemical consequence of the fast breathing pattern, and it is a clear sign that you need to slow down your breathing.
Feelings of Paresthesia from Anxiety
Paresthesia does not come alone during a panic event. It almost comes along with other clear signs of extreme stress, which gives a clue that anxiety is the true cause of such feelings and sensations. It is necessary to recognize these symptoms to regain calmness.
It is possible that you may experience tingling or numbness. This can feel like pricking, tickling, or the crawling sensation of pins and needles in many parts of the body. Most people feel it in the hands and feet, but it can also occur in the face, around the lips, or on the scalp.
With this feeling, you might experience a racing heart. The heart beats faster than common or usual, as part of the body’s response to stress. It pumps blood faster to prepare for action. This rapid heartbeat often fuels the panic because it makes you feel as if you are in immediate danger.
You might also feel dizziness or lightheadedness. These usual changes come from the combination of blood flow and rapid breathing. Lightheadedness can quickly make you fear losing consciousness, which again intensifies the paresthesia anxiety.
Physical Symptoms Of Paresthesia In Anxiety
The most common physical anxiety numbness symptom is shortness of breath. Besides hyperventilation, you might also feel sweating and a feeling of heightened alertness. You feel conscious and aware of impending danger. This state of constant readiness exhausts your body and keeps the stress hormones circulating.
Muscle Tension And Nerve Compression
Another cause of these unusual sensations is the chronic physical tension that often accompanies anxiety.
When you live with continuous stress and worry, your muscles, especially those in your neck, shoulders, and back, remain contracted. You unconsciously hold yourself stiffly, ready for action. This chronic tension can place pressure on nerves that travel from the spine into the arms and hands.
The feeling is the same, just as if sitting in the wrong way, and your feet feel pins and needles. Chronic tension can slightly compress these nerves, leading to that familiar prickling sensation. This physical symptom further reinforces the anxiety and creates a confusing and tiring feeling.
When to Consult a Professional
Although paresthesia is normal during a panic attack, it is a benign phenomenon. You can say it is a completely natural and responsible way to worry about a potential danger. But it is always wise to consult a professional doctor if the symptoms go out of control or if tingling remains persistent even long after the stressful event has passed.
If you experience persistent and worsening paresthesia, especially if it comes with weakness, coordination problems, or speech changes, you should consult a healthcare professional immediately to rule out a serious underlying condition.
A mental health professional or therapist can provide the long-term support you need. This can help you understand the core triggers of anxiety and panic. A professional psychiatrist will understand the underlying cause of paresthesia with medical and neurological conditions that might cause similar symptoms. Once the symptoms are anxiety-related, they suggest such treatment that focuses on managing the anxiety disorder.
Treatment Approaches
Anxiety paresthesia treatment approaches by mental health professionals include:
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
This is a highly effective treatment that helps a person to identify and change the thought patterns and behaviors that trigger anxiety and related physical and psychological symptoms. CBT helps manage the catastrophic thinking often associated with unexplained physical symptoms.
A psychiatrist also teaches you coping mechanisms and relaxation techniques. Through structural therapy, you learn how to respond to stress in a way that prevents the body’s full fight-or-flight response from activating in the first place. Thus, it helps to remove the chemical and physiological causes of the tingling and numbness.
Take away
Living with anxiety is difficult enough, and if it comes with persistent fear and physical responses, it can give your body side effects. By understanding that paresthesia is a signal from anxiety, you can gain the power to manage it. We have discussed the therapies and mechanisms to control paresthesia anxiety. Therapists at Inland Empire Behavioral Group help you develop coping skills for paresthesia anxiety. They know your situation better and can help you understand your feelings better. Knowledge about the mental health condition is the first step towards healing, and the rest will follow. You can call us or email us to book an appointment to discuss your core issues, and we will give you the best solutions. Besides that, they can also help you solve other mental issues better.
