The 4 differences between anxiety and respiratory problems

These times are truly stressful. Although it seems that the situation is improving, the truth is that the pandemic has turned the lives of many people upside down who are afraid of catching it.

Some symptoms of anxiety coincide with those of COVID-19, especially shortness of breath and chest pressure. As the fear of having the disease causes even more anxiety, whoever is experiencing one of these episodes worries more, having even more difficulty breathing and feeling worse.

Taking this into account today we are going to see what they are the main differences between anxiety and respiratory problems associated with illnesses, in addition to seeing some ways to find out if you are facing an anxiety attack or not.

• Related article: "The 7 types of anxiety (characteristics, causes and symptoms)"

Main differences between anxiety and respiratory problems

Anxiety episodes are pictures that many people can suffer throughout their lives. Behind them there may be all kinds of causes that cause all kinds of symptoms in those who suffer from it, different in each person but who share as the main emotion experienced a deep fear and fear of how things will go. things.

The global pandemic is a problem serious enough to increase the number of cases of anxiety attacks. In addition to the fear of how society will develop in times after this crisis, there is the fact of being afraid of the virus itself, since the disease it causes is potentially mortal. Being a respiratory disease, COVID-19 can cause shortness of breath, a symptom that many people manifest when they have an anxiety attack.

If we put ourselves in the shoes of a person who is experiencing an anxiety attack and taking into account that COVID-19 is the protagonist of the informative news, the fact that we begin to lack breath is something that will alert us very easily. We will associate this difficulty in breathing with the coronavirus, since it is the disease of the moment and the main danger. We will believe that we have been infected and that we are showing the first symptoms, that we will be just one step away from being admitted to the ICU.

Believing this, the situation will get worse, since the more anxiety we will be short of breath, and the more we think about COVID-19 (or any other serious respiratory disease) we will have more anxiety and, so on, until someone or something achieves calm them down. Having the coronavirus disease is not the only thing that damages our health, but also the constantly thinking about it and not knowing how to differentiate between anxiety and respiratory problems of medical.

It is for all this that, with the intention of helping all those people who have ever suffered an attack of anxiety, then we will see the similarities and differences between excessive anxiety and problems respiratory.

Symptoms of anxiety and respiratory problems

First of all, we are going to know what the symptoms of anxiety are. This problem does not manifest itself in the same way in all people since, just as we have different personality, intelligence and abilities, our way of manifesting a psychological problem is also different. However, what coincides in all cases that there is an anxiety attack is an irrational fear and fear, especially without knowing how the episode will end or thinking that there is a potentially dangerous situation.

In the current context, concern about the virus is normal and it is natural for people to be very stressed. Added to the fear of catching the virus is the uncertainty of how all this will end, the economic and social repercussions that it is implying and if the “new normal” will end up being the future “normal”, a world in which it will cost a lot adapt.

Thinking about all this is something that It can cause an anxiety attack in all types of people, especially those with a neurotic personality or an anxiety disorder.. Among the symptoms that we can find in a picture of this type we have.

• Feelings of fear, panic, and nervousness
• Obsessive and uncontrollable thoughts
• repeated thoughts
• Flashbacks of traumatic events
• Irrational ritual behaviors
• excessive sweating
• Numbness in the hands and feet
• Shortness of breath and hyperventilation
• Chest pain or palpitations
• Inability to be calm and collected
• Dry mouth, nausea, and dizziness
• Feeling calm, on edge
• Fatigue
• Difficult to focus
• mind blank
• Irritation
• Muscle tension
• excessive worry
• Sleep problems: insomnia and lack of restful sleep.
• Diarrhea

Taking COVID-19 as an example respiratory disease, among its primary symptoms we can find the following three.

• Fever
• Trouble breathing
• Dry cough

Other less common symptoms of this disease are:

• Pain in various parts of the body
• Nasal congestion
• Rhinorrhea (runny nose)
• Sore throat
• Diarrhea

Distinguishing between both alterations

Looking at the symptoms of both problems, we can see that what an anxiety attack and COVID-19 coincide in are breathing difficulties, although their severity is different.

It is clear that If you are suffering from an anxiety attack, you are having a problem and the ideal is to consult a psychologist to acquire the best strategies to deal with it; This already gives us one of the differences to differentiate between both alterations: anxiety is a psychological phenomenon that in most cases do not have organic causes, while respiratory problems are linked to alterations physical.

But perhaps the most notable difference between the two is the fever. Although this symptom can occur in very extreme cases of anxiety attacks, this is something very rare, while in the case of diseases caused by pathogens such as viruses and bacteria, it is common that in addition to not being able to breathe well, the temperature rises bodily.

Another clearer distinction is runny nose. In respiratory problems in general, there is often excessive production of mucus, while in an anxiety attack this does not happen. It may happen that the person experiencing such an attack is cold and have a lot of runny nose but it will not be anxiety that causes it, but the problem respiratory itself.

Another aspect in which anxiety and respiratory problems differ is in their duration.. A panic attack that includes shortness of breath can last between 20 and 30 minutes, peaking after about 10 minutes. On the other hand, breathing difficulties associated with a respiratory disease, whether mild such as a cold or serious such as the coronavirus, vary in duration depending on the medical problem in question, but last at least several days.

• You may be interested in: "The phases of breathing, and how they are produced in the human body"

How to know if it is anxiety or a respiratory disease?

Naturally, the best people to diagnose respiratory diseases are doctors, while the best people to detect an anxiety attack are psychologists. However, it is useful to know what to do to know how to distinguish between these two problems without having to go to a hospital and, on the one hand, giving doctors more work than necessary and, on the other, risking catch.

In addition to taking into account the aforementioned differences, what we can do to see if we really have a respiratory problem is the following exercise:

• Sit or lie down with your back straight
• Exhale fully through the mouth
• Close your mouth slightly and inhale through your nose for a count of four.
• Hold your breath and count to seven
• Exhale audibly through your mouth and count to eight
• Repeat steps 3-6 three more times until you count four breath cycles.

If we have been able to do this exercise without shortness of breath, it is most likely that we have had an anxiety attack. In people who suffer from a respiratory disease, it is not possible to complete the exercise, since the lungs are too affected and breathing difficulties worsen over a short period of time.

Likewise, given the exceptionality of the situation in which we find ourselves, regional and state governments and different health organizations have made available of users telephone numbers with which to contact people who, without having to go to the doctor, can inform us about whether we may have the disease. If you have not been able to complete the breathing exercise just mentioned, it is best to seek urgent medical help.

Bibliographic references:

• Solomon, C. (2015). Generalized Anxiety Disorder. The New England Journal of Medicine, 373(21), pp. 2059 - 2068.
• Sylvers, P.; Lilienfeld, S.O.; LaPrairie, J.L. (2011). Differences between trait fear and trait anxiety: implications for psychopathology. Clinical Psychology Review. 31(1): p. 122 - 137.
• Wu, J. (2015). Episodic future thinking in generalized anxiety disorder. Journal of anxiety disorders, 36, pp. 1 - 8.
• European Center for Disease Prevention and Control. (2020) “Outbreak of acute respiratory syndrome associated with a novel coronavirus, China; First cases imported in the EU/EEA; second update”. ECDC.