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Can anxiety cause hand tremors?
I am a 25 year old female. This past six weeks I have noticed that I have developed hand tremors.
I have been through an extremely stressful period since summer, but those situations have calmed down now, and my tremors have come on since the stress eased off.
I am reasonably healthy and cannot see a reason for this to start happening. Is it possible that the stress and anxiety that I have been through could have manifested itself in my hands (and what feels like my arms)and make them shake? I feel like I am picking things up and moving them about as if I was extremely nervous. I also feel like I can feel the blood pumping through my upper body as my heart beats and I am constantly tired. I haven't had to stop doing anything. I have full feeling and can type/write etc perfectly fine.
I am driving myself crazy noticing every little abnormal movement and twitch. I saw a doctor and she said it was like my mind was that tired/fatigued that my body has decided to do something about it. Could this be true? And will my symptoms ever go away? At the moment it seems like I will be living with them forever. I just want to be normal again and stop shaking. Please help. Any advice would be gratefully recieved.
I have been through an extremely stressful period since summer, but those situations have calmed down now, and my tremors have come on since the stress eased off.
I am reasonably healthy and cannot see a reason for this to start happening. Is it possible that the stress and anxiety that I have been through could have manifested itself in my hands (and what feels like my arms)and make them shake? I feel like I am picking things up and moving them about as if I was extremely nervous. I also feel like I can feel the blood pumping through my upper body as my heart beats and I am constantly tired. I haven't had to stop doing anything. I have full feeling and can type/write etc perfectly fine.
I am driving myself crazy noticing every little abnormal movement and twitch. I saw a doctor and she said it was like my mind was that tired/fatigued that my body has decided to do something about it. Could this be true? And will my symptoms ever go away? At the moment it seems like I will be living with them forever. I just want to be normal again and stop shaking. Please help. Any advice would be gratefully recieved.
I had a huge fight over the phone with my brother in early 2012, at 2 in the morning, after drinking coffee all night. It was a really stressful situation because business was involved, and I remember being so upset that I could have punched through steel. I went to bed, only to wake up a couple hours later with my teeth chattering slightly. I was super anxious and freaked out in general. The teeth chattering thing made me more anxious which made me start searching Google... which lead to more anxiety (I know all of you do that, but you won't talk about it here, because even mentioning the things you find scares you).
I've had non-stop anxiety ever since that night, and I have panic attacks in the early morning (usually 2-4 am), and sometimes nightmares which, in their content, aren't very scary, but which scare me half to death. My hands shake when I do things like raise my index fingers up off the keyboard and hold them up. If I try to do yoga, my arms get really shaky and I have to quit. I have plenty of strength to lift weights, but after doing so I'm super shaky. I can't stop and I'm afraid I never will be able to :( I also get muscle spasms when I'm really anxious. They're usually in my left arm or chest (fluttering as mentioned above), and sometimes in my eyelid muscles, and once in a while in my quad muscles. The more I worry or the more caffeine I drink the worse they get. I have to drink caffeine to stay motivated because I work on a computer all day (not exactly exciting), so it's a catch-22.
I did take Lorazepam in 2012 about 6 months after the anxiety started. That helped tremendously in the short term (couple months), BUT your body quickly begins to acclimate to benzodiazapines (which is what Lorazepam is), so eventually you have to increase your dose. After increasing from the lowest dose (half a 5mg pill in the morning and half at night) to a slightly higher dose (1 5mg pill in the morning and half at night), I began noticing that I was acclimating even more quickly, which caused me to have more anxiety (I know, right?), so I quickly waned myself off of the pills (took another month to do), which resulted in way worse spasms and anxiety, because unfortunately the reason Lorazepam works so well is because it dulls your senses, which results in heightened senses when you get off of it. For people who have taken it for years, I hear it's a living nightmare to try to get off of it. In other words, I wouldn't recommend this stuff for anything other than getting rid of a panic attack (like, to use 1 time per week or less - any more will lead you into the same rabbit hole).
I haven't tried much else, but that's because I have a hard time finding any good advice and I hear almost nothing good about any of the meds out there (Xanax seems to be the closest thing to "maybe I should try it" for me, but I've yet to do so). I don't know what to do. If somebody handed me a 1 million dollar check, my anxiety would be gone. I suspect the same is true for a great many of you who stress day in and out about money. I make good money (more than 150k/yr), but that only makes my anxiety worse. When I made less money (~40k/yr) I was way less stressed out, not because my job was easier (it wasn't), but because I didn't feel so much pressure to continue doing so well. I have so much fear because of "moving up in the world" (it's not really moving up - it's just running faster on the hamster wheel), and what I really want is financial freedom, the ability to take time off when I want, the ability to not stress, etc., but unless that happens I feel like I'm stuck in a spiral that will lead to me falling apart :(
Lessons for those whose anxiety is largely due to social pressure and finance:
1) Don't try to make more money - it's a trap
2) Try to find a way to do less while making the same money
3) Have fun doing the things that you did "back in the good old days"
4) Stay on top of everything
5) Seriously, DO NOT PROCRASTINATE. IT MAKES EVERYTHING WORSE
I've had non-stop anxiety ever since that night, and I have panic attacks in the early morning (usually 2-4 am), and sometimes nightmares which, in their content, aren't very scary, but which scare me half to death. My hands shake when I do things like raise my index fingers up off the keyboard and hold them up. If I try to do yoga, my arms get really shaky and I have to quit. I have plenty of strength to lift weights, but after doing so I'm super shaky. I can't stop and I'm afraid I never will be able to :( I also get muscle spasms when I'm really anxious. They're usually in my left arm or chest (fluttering as mentioned above), and sometimes in my eyelid muscles, and once in a while in my quad muscles. The more I worry or the more caffeine I drink the worse they get. I have to drink caffeine to stay motivated because I work on a computer all day (not exactly exciting), so it's a catch-22.
I did take Lorazepam in 2012 about 6 months after the anxiety started. That helped tremendously in the short term (couple months), BUT your body quickly begins to acclimate to benzodiazapines (which is what Lorazepam is), so eventually you have to increase your dose. After increasing from the lowest dose (half a 5mg pill in the morning and half at night) to a slightly higher dose (1 5mg pill in the morning and half at night), I began noticing that I was acclimating even more quickly, which caused me to have more anxiety (I know, right?), so I quickly waned myself off of the pills (took another month to do), which resulted in way worse spasms and anxiety, because unfortunately the reason Lorazepam works so well is because it dulls your senses, which results in heightened senses when you get off of it. For people who have taken it for years, I hear it's a living nightmare to try to get off of it. In other words, I wouldn't recommend this stuff for anything other than getting rid of a panic attack (like, to use 1 time per week or less - any more will lead you into the same rabbit hole).
I haven't tried much else, but that's because I have a hard time finding any good advice and I hear almost nothing good about any of the meds out there (Xanax seems to be the closest thing to "maybe I should try it" for me, but I've yet to do so). I don't know what to do. If somebody handed me a 1 million dollar check, my anxiety would be gone. I suspect the same is true for a great many of you who stress day in and out about money. I make good money (more than 150k/yr), but that only makes my anxiety worse. When I made less money (~40k/yr) I was way less stressed out, not because my job was easier (it wasn't), but because I didn't feel so much pressure to continue doing so well. I have so much fear because of "moving up in the world" (it's not really moving up - it's just running faster on the hamster wheel), and what I really want is financial freedom, the ability to take time off when I want, the ability to not stress, etc., but unless that happens I feel like I'm stuck in a spiral that will lead to me falling apart :(
Lessons for those whose anxiety is largely due to social pressure and finance:
1) Don't try to make more money - it's a trap
2) Try to find a way to do less while making the same money
3) Have fun doing the things that you did "back in the good old days"
4) Stay on top of everything
5) Seriously, DO NOT PROCRASTINATE. IT MAKES EVERYTHING WORSE
I completely know where you are coming from. I am 28 and have been experiencing social anxiety over the past year, however mostly for staff/student meetings at work. I am really good at my job, but somehow I feel I am going to sound stupid so I begin this overwhelming fear in my meetings. It gets so bad that my neck is extremely tense and I have a tremor/jerk. It is so embarrassing and makes me hate myself. I can't explain myself to people when I have such high anxiety. I just wanted to say that I know what you are experiencing; however, I have not found anything to help me YET! I am seeing a therapist for cognitive based therapy; however, everything is easier said than done!
Good luck and my hope is that it goes away for you! It's hard to enjoy life at times because of this overwhelming social anxiety!
Good luck and my hope is that it goes away for you! It's hard to enjoy life at times because of this overwhelming social anxiety!
Meditation helps great with the anxiety, I recently got really bad treamours and have started to train to be a chef, holding a knife can be a ball ache or even just carrying things. Hope i'm in the right carrer,as I do enjoy it :), I also wonder if littleomlette got over the tremours as this post is from some time ago, would be nice to know.
You might want to consider going to psychiatrist it might help with the tremors i have them as well but am only 14 years old. but yeah good luck
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