Anxiety, emotions and somatization: how are they related?

Anxiety and emotional disorders They have curious and diverse ways of showing themselves to us, many of which are not usually interpreted as such sometimes even if a specialist is indicating it to us.

Headaches, in the abdomen, in the back, in the arms and legs, in the joints, in the chest... Nausea, dizziness, vomiting, ulcers, diarrhea... Difficulty swallowing, difficulty breathing, skin disorders, hoarseness, memory loss... blindness, deafness...

How does our body react to anxiety?

Logically, when our body shows any of the aforementioned problems, the first thing to do is always rule out a physical origin; but, What happens when medical examinations do not find a cause for these symptoms?

It is quite common in our social environment to identify the origin of headaches, muscle contractions, or exhaustion as the consequences of a person's exposure to a significant level of stress or because of a state of mind decayed

However, there are many more physical symptoms that can reveal that an individual is experiencing a high degree of anxiety or that they may even be going through a 

depressive episode.

Somatizations and their symptoms

According to the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), one of the most prestigious international diagnostic manuals, published by the American Psychiatric Association, all the symptoms described in the previous paragraph, and even some more, can appear in a picture of somatoform disorder, that is, a disorder that is characterized by the appearance of physical symptoms but whose origin is not is in no organic alteration, but are due to a series of psychosocial problems, the which are externalized somatically.

It is estimated that approximately 25% to 75% of visits to the primary care physician are actually due to various somatoform disorders. However, it is also frequent that many of these types of patients do not accept that the origin of their discomfort is not found in any organic disease, so its adherence to treatments is usually low.

The Spanish Society of Psychiatry stated in 2015 that somatoform disorders had a prevalence of 28.8%, only surpassed by affective disorders (35.8%), and closely followed by anxiety disorders (25.6%).

Prevention of anxiety and emotional management

It seems evident that an inadequate management of anxiety or a deficit in the regulation of emotions may be at the base of somatization. And this seems to be one of the great evils of our time.

As a general rule, people learn to deal with frustrations and stressful events as they grow into adults; from the youngest age, boys and girls have to face their emotional development, their process of socialization, and the formation of their identity and self-esteem.

In this way, one learns that one does not always get what one wants, that I cannot always do what I please, that I have to share affections, spaces, and objects, that I have to make an effort to achieve what I want, that I have to trust myself to believe that I can achieve my goals, and progressively assume that I have to comply with a series of rules that are mostly imposed, but that I finally understand as necessary to obtain a certain harmony when I live with others individuals.

Tools to overcome the demands of daily life

However, the obstacles do not stop appearing when we learn to avoid them, nor do the frustrations subside when we learn to tolerate them; In fact, adult life is usually a difficult path in which stressful life events often occur and not a few situations in which our goals are in danger or are not achieved.

If evolutionary development at the socio-emotional level has facilitated the acquisition of tools to deal with stressful situations and to tolerate frustrations (loss of employment, couple breakup, suffering from a serious illness, traffic accident, loss of a loved one, difficulty reconciling personal, work and family life, non-compliance with vital expectations, difficulty adapting to new situations...), people tend to make do and keep moving forward, although sometimes they need professional help punctual.

But if, on the contrary, these tools were not acquired at the time, then there will be no capacity to tolerate frustration successfully, nor skills to manage emotions, so that at the first major obstacle that presents itself, anxiety is very likely to appear, and if it is not controlled duly, a pattern of avoidance or paralysis that will inevitably lead to suffering from a psychological disorder.

Treatment

Treating somatization problems is difficult because, as we pointed out previously, Many of the people who suffer from it believe that their symptoms, being physical, must have a physical cause..

Other individuals are reluctant to allow themselves to be intervened by a Psychology professional, and end up being chronic consumers of anxiolytics and antidepressants, or by going to the pain units with relative frequency; but the truth is that their problems do not improve, although pharmacology relieves them in the short term.

It is evident that psychotherapy is the most useful alternative, perhaps complemented by a pharmacological treatment that acts on the physical symptoms, since it allows the person to understand what and why their somatic discomforts occur in the absence of an origin organic.

Work on the cause of anxiety, on the cognitive schemes that are involved in the perception of stressful situations, facilitate stress coping strategies, relaxation techniques, skills to manage emotions more effectively, foster self-esteem positive... Of course, it requires more effort and time for those who suffer from somatization, but there is no doubt that it is more effective to influence what it generates physical symptoms than simply acting on them indefinitely as short-term relief, never quite solving the problem real.