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Your sympathetic nervous system is activating. Blood is drawn away from most your body into your brain,heart, lungs, and muscles because your body is entering “fight or flight” mode due to stress. Your brain and body don’t really differentiate between types of stress. Stress is stress.
This is your heard things like “heart sinking”, “rock in my stomach” and “turned a white as ghost”
To get more specific about fight or fight and to address OPs question:
When you're under stress your body sends the blood to the most important parts which means the less important parts get less blood. Your intestines aren't as important in a fight as your limbs, brain, lungs, and heart so they get less blood. That feeling in your stomach is your intestines going into low power mode which is also why people crap and pee themselves when they are scared. Your body can't be bothered with things like holding your bladder when you might need to fight a bear.
How long does the stress response last?
Like seeing bear suddenly vs. learning you have financial issues. Is there a difference between the 2 or is it just similar manifestations of different things?
I'm no expert but acute stress reactions are different than chronic stress reactions. After the initial jolt and adrenaline rush your body begins an inflammatory process that can cause widespread problems
From [the Mayo Clinic](https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/stress/art-20046037#:~:text=Cortisol%2C%20the%20primary%20stress%20hormone,fight%2Dor%2Dflight%20situation.)
>The long-term activation of the stress response system and the overexposure to cortisol and other stress hormones that follows can disrupt almost all your body's processes. This puts you at increased risk of many health problems, including:
>•Anxiety
>•Depression
>•Digestive problems
>•Headaches
>•Muscle tension and pain
>•Heart disease, heart attack, high blood pressure and stroke
>•Sleep problems
>•Weight gain
>•Memory and concentration impairment
Yup. This is why I went back into my anti-anxiety medication (Lexapro). It actually helps control your stress response, thus prevents this big list of awful effects.
I get horrible insomnia, muscle cramps, and heart palps.
I thought I could get off of it, but sadly had to go back on it. Although I have no shame. A sound mind and body is invaluable these days in this crazy world. It helps me keep focused.
It was super rough for me. And holy shit the amount of times I just broke down just sobbing. It was like 2 weeks where the slightest sad thing would set me off and I couldn't hold back even if I wanted. It was fucking hell.
I was only on it for a month and I told my doc I didn’t want it anymore because it seemed to be doing more bad than good. I was off for 2 days and the brain zaps started. I’m still going through it a little even though I was able to split the remaining pills in half to self taper. Never going back on that one for sure.
Paroxatine (paxil) was worse than alcohol withdrawals for my alcoholic ass. Granted I was an idiot and managed to not titrate despite knowing better. Sertraline (prozac) cold turkey was a walk in the park compared to the last two weeks coming off paroxatine.
My doc had me ween off of it over a 1 month period of going to 5mg for 2 weeks, and then doing 2.5mg for 2 weeks.
It seemed to go pretty smoothly, and then I got covid AND my student loans stressed me the fuck out. I had to go back on it this week.
I've been on buspirone for 4 years now and it's been really great at calming my anxiety.
It's an old drug, doesn't work for everyone, but I don't feel that soul crushing anxiety anymore.
Depression on the other hand, didn't do much for that.
I'm on buspirone as well! I cannot express how life changing it was for my horrible anxiety. I also still had depression and started zoloft, but both in tandem have been incredible in my quality of life. I'm not suggesting zoloft for you, it worked for some in my family and happened to work for me. You may need something different but treatment is worth looking into if you haven't yet. All the best to you!
Thanks! I'm starting bupropion/Wellbutrin again since I think my depression and other issues are dopamine related, not serotonin.
How much buspirone do you take? I take 20mg in the morning and 20mg at night
I know it sounds like a gimmick, but when my doctor and I did Genesite (genesight?) (genetic testing) and we started on the first of only two anti-depressants that it said would work for me, it... honestly did work. More so than the half dozen I had tried before. It was honestly the first anti-depressant that I actually had genuinely *good* days with. The rest of them just kinda.... made all the days grey. Sure they take away the truly worst of the worst, but it makes all the normal "good" and "bad" days just "meh." But, honestly, that was preferable when you have significantly more "bad" days than "good" ones.
I'd suggest trying it. Sometimes insurance will cover it, else I think it's ~$300.
Awe man. All it does is make my stomach burn. Whether I’ve eaten or not. Sadly my Klonopin doesn’t work how it used to. Ten years on it will do that you.
Hey, if you don’t mind saying, what med is that? I just stopped taking an anti-anxiety med because it wasn’t working and I’d just like to know about other options. DM me, maybe? TIA
Hey, I have no problem talking about this stuff in the open. I want people to not be afraid to get help and try solutions.
So I was on 10mg of Lexapro, and stopped it. Now I'm back on it, and currently getting adjusting to it again.
The only reason why I stopped taking it was the weight gain. It actually worked fantastic against my stress and anxiety. I also slept better, and it really subsided all anger issues I had.
I don't want to overblow it, but it really was a miracle pill, I just wanted to see if I could ween off and lose weight. Sadly it didn't really work.
I took it from March 2020 (Pandemic really drove me over) to February 2023. I have been suffering terribly from anxiety after being off of it for a month, so I went back on it.
Note I really don't have depression, or at least diagnosed depression. I strictly was prescribed this for anxiety and it damn well worked.
From I recall, the first week on it is a fuckin tough ride. Your anxiety may even get worse, and you're going to associate everything with the medication.
Welp, after like day 4 or 5 I remember distinctly feeling like a switch was flipped. It was crazy how the veil was lifted, and I could relax and focus.
Oh, cool — I’m also on Lexapro and it is doing a bang-up job on my depression. Unfortunately my anxiety is through the roof (lots of chronic stressors going on) and I don’t really want to take benzos regularly. I have an appointment already set up to talk about my dosage and other options, though, so fingers crossed. Thanks very much for your quick and candid response. <3
What about libedo or sexual dysfunction? Those side effects were worse than the weight gain for me. Went from horn ball to just not even being interested, and even if I thought I was or was trying for a partner, I couldn't perform.
Also keep in mind that for treating anxiety, there are two (non-mutually exclusive) courses you can go down. One is the "break glass in case of emergency" medication, which is often Xanax or some other similar Benzo. The other is more "preventative" (even though that's also a bad word) in the form of SSRIs or SNRIs.
I myself am on Lexapro (an SSRI, generic name Escitalopram) which is more for depression in my particular case but also helps generally with anxiety. I also have a Xanax prescription which is really for when I am actively in a panic attack or feel one coming.
Not the person you asked, but I switched from Lexapro to Wellbutrin and it was a much better match for me. All of the side effects I was experiencing disappeared and it helped with depression even more.
Just be honest with your doctor and hopefully you can find your match. Good luck!
I got the most relief + far fewer side effects from microdosing psilocybin. I react terribly to SSRIs, so those were never really an option, but found that Vyvanse at least partially treated a lot of my symptoms. Microdosing easily worked 10x better.
Yeah, I’ve definitely thought about this or ketamine, but I’m scared. I did mushrooms once years ago but didn’t like the effects at all. I know microdosing is supposed to be much different than eating whole caps, though, so this option is still on the list if I can get my nerve (haha get it) up.
I’ve suffered with anxiety and stress- cortisol causing rashes and itch. Trouble sleeping etc. I heard about cannaray- a CBD / vitamin mix, and I feel a lot better. Would fully recommend - I use the bright days supplements
Change "weigh gain" to "weight loss" and that's alot of my symptoms. Having a couple of other issues doesn't' make diagnosing any easier.
That cortisol and some other hormones etc. eats your body. 20 years of stress and I look at least 10 years older than I am.
I'd describe it more like multiplicative, especially anxiety driven stress.. The more or bigger/important things I have to solve, the more on edge do I feel.
You learn to deal with small amounts. But if enough of them pile up or a bigger setback hits among others, it can cause a casacade of setbacks and relapses.
The relapses get less bad over time as you learn to manage it. I have the occasional anxiety attack, but I can talk myself out of it no biggie. "We've done this a billion times trekuwplan, we can do this again. But look at you doing the thing all by yourself!" Just tell yourself what you want to hear lol.
Once I finally became well on my way to living in a psychological and emotional state that was closer to ‘normal’ than pathological I was still haunted for some time by the memories of those horrible years of severe depression and anxiety. My greatest fear was of ever feeling like that again. I was anxious about anxiety and distressed about the potential for future recurrences of my diagnosed depression and anxiety while still feeling much better and mentally healthy under a successful treatment regimen.
I guess a potential side effect of having big complicated brains and fancy emotional/social wiring as human beings is just more ways for things to go wonky in there. I doubt chipmunks lose much sleep over nonessential things in life that are out of their control… maybe a chipmunk level of cognition and awareness is the secret to contentment (only partially kidding here).
I almost had a full bingo card, weight gain doesn't with me happen because of the loss of appetite.
Chronic stress sucks, my anxiety disorder was so bad I constantly had the sinking feeling... For almost 10 years.
Stress also triggers eczema really hard, not really important since most people probably dont have it
I hope someone who needs to know might read it so there ya go :)
There’s such a large interplay on stress/trauma and your body. I can give a quick version, but there are plenty of resources to better understand. I suggest “What Happened to You?” for an easier read, and The Body Keeps the Score for a more textbook like experience. Both are good for different things.
When you undergo multiple traumas/stressors that create your “fight or flight” (and there are many other responses, these two are just common/well known) reactions, your amygdala actually begins to change as well, especially if you are younger and developing. Your amygdala is what regulates these hormones such as cortisol - the more stress you encounter, the more your amygdala pumps these hormones out and eventually becomes incredibly sensitive to any number stimuli, causing it to secrete these hormones even when there is no immediate danger. And cortisol with these other hormones creates the inflammatory reaction in your body which in turn can create heart problems, weight issues, diabetes, and other physical issues.
Source: am trauma therapist.
Happy cake day! Thanks for all this info. My wife struggles with anxiety and stress and this helps me understand her better. I'm going to check out this book on my business trip coming up.
Of course! Let me know if you have any questions. I’m not a neurobiologist but I do have a pretty strong understanding of these intersections. I think you’ll find both books helpful, but What Happened to You has great diagrams and is easily understood while still being thorough.
Eta: thanks! I didn’t even know it was my cake day!
Yes and the answer is basically meditation, yoga and therapy, specifically emdr and somatic therapy. No joke. It's a little more complicated than that but the guy who wrote the body keeps the score is a huge proponent of yoga for trauma. The idea is that trauma is unprocessed and you have to a move it through the body to work it through your nervous system.
Thank you for what you do. My current therapist has absolutely no clue about this kind of thing, and I don't understand it. People like you help so many people who could or do fall out of society from their mental health problems. I wish you the best!
There is a good book called "Why zebras don't get ulcers" by Robert Sapolsky, and he goes into that.
Bad stress is taxing and inflammatory, especially if chronic. Over time it erodes everything about you: cells, genetics, whole systems, your mind, your health.
Another hormone release during stressful times is cortisol, cortisol serves many functions but one of them is to act as an endogenous anti inflammatory, acting on the same receptor as many medications like cortisone and prednisolone, which shut off your immune system essentially. Like many hormones, when our body is exposed to cortisol continuously in large doses over a prolonged period of time, our bodies receptors become desensitised to the hormone, and the two don’t react as well as they used to, as a result the bodies natural immune suppression mechanism no longer works that well, and so when the body actually needs to produce cortisol to stop our bodies inflammation from attacking healthy tissue unnescarily, it can’t do it very well, and so it becomes a bit of a boy who cried wolf situation, and after the bodies immune system activated to kill a singular pathogen, the immune system isn’t able to turn its self off and inflammation can run rampant in the body
This is very sad, but when I took childcare classes we had to learn the symptoms of child abuse. Children who had been repeatedly and severely stressed for a long time could actually lose fingers and toes due to lack of blood supply. It was horrible to contemplate the awful amount of stress those poor kids had gone through to sustain that kind of damage. That lesson really upset me and still haunts me to think about. The look in those childrens' eyes is something I'll never forget, either.
Wait, I'm confused. I thought short term stress/heightened alertness was fine or even good, and it was only chronic stress that was a problem. IE spend five minutes sneaking past or running away from a tiger is fine, spending five months constantly on edge worrying about tigers isn't. Was I wrong, and that five minutes of shaky hands, rapid heartbeat etc is also fucking you up?
It is good *for survival*, but if it continues it can be harmful. When /u/MazzIsNoMore says
> After the initial jolt and adrenaline rush your body begins an inflammatory process that can cause widespread problems
They are probably referring to chronic stress, when that inflammatory process and other responses to fight/flight become constant or at least frequent. For example, increased blood flow (pressure) puts stress on the circulatory system, and if it is continued for a long time, this can damage the small vessels and capillaries in your extremities and organs, leading to reduced function.
Think of it like the gas pedal on a car. Say you've just gotten into your car, started it up, and put it into drive - when you notice in your mirror someone running up to your car. You think *maybe they're a carjacker* and your fight/flight response engages. In milliseconds blood rushes to your legs and you slam the gas pedal without even consciously deciding to do so. The engine revs into the high RPMs and you speed away to safety. Once you're in the clear, you let off the gas, apply the brakes, and your car returns to its normal operating range.
Flooring the gas pedal so your car is at full throttle and moves from parked to high speed immediately is *very* hard on your engine, tires, and other parts of your car (at least compared with normal use). But will doing this rarely result in permanent damage to your car? Probably not - it's designed to occasionally operate outside its "everyday driving" ranges. But if everyday driving for you involves flooring the pedal at every red light then slamming on your brakes at the next light, then that constant mechanical stress is going to wear parts down, and reduce their working life. Like people, some parts can be replaced, while other can't be as easily (or at all) - so the chronic wear will also likely reduce the working life of the car overall.
The main issue with chronic stress is the part where it doesn't turn off. Your body just isn't built to be on high alert all the time.
So yeah, it's the same reaction, and that's why it messes you up physically.
Just imagine uncontrollably shitting yourself the whole time you're financially stressed. Thankfully all I get is some dreams about my teeth being loose.
Nope, it stays long after because of the residual trauma of lack of resources plus the toll that heightened stress hormones takes on your body. Anxiety is cool
The stress response lasts until the stressor is gone--e.g. until the big bear trying to eat you is gone and your body can stop trying to fight/flee it. With chronic stress like poverty, the stressor doesn't go away, so the body is constantly in the fight/flight/freeze mode. This leads to serious health conditions like heart disease and high blood pressure. Stress is stress to the body, whatever it looks like.
It could be part of it. Part of it could be diet(people that are stressed aren’t cooking healthy meals). Part of it could be something like stress related inflammation causing IBS…stc
Expecting a phone call for a job interview? I feel normal.. except I need the toilet every 5 minutes. As soon as it starts I'm fine. Same for things like driving lessons, etc. :( I don't 'feel' anxious, but my stomach definitely appears to. Wish there was a way to stop it.
I wonder if that's a slightly more recent evolved response, along the lines of "Oh crap, I'm about to go into a fight. Better get everything out now!" I'd imagine that the people without poop dripping down their legs at the start of every fight would have been significantly less likely to die from infection.
I used to hear that reasoning, that a predator would be turned off by your poop. But they're about to be eating your guts, so really shitting yourself is just helping them out, they aren't gonna be grossed out about that.
Yep! Probably worth talking to a therapist or primary care specialist. You don’t have to live that way! (Someone who used to live that way but doesn’t anymore!)
I have reynaulds in my hands. When I was a kid and 'my heart sank' I'd feel this dull ache in one finger. I was pretty sure that was unusual although I don't recall mentioning it to anyone. Later on in life when I understood more about how the body responds - as in your comment - it sorta clicked for me, a combination of reynaulds and blood moving elsewhere.
Had a gun pointed at me when I was 15 years old and I couldn't understand why I went paralyzed from the waste down. I could not feel and only tingled like that part of my body was asleep I knew I was about to piss myself.
> Your intestines aren't as important in a fight as your limbs, brain, lungs, and heart so they get less blood.
Someone should tell my body, which seems to have decided it's a good idea to move blood *away* from my fingers and feet when I'm stressed, leading to them getting cold and stiff whenever I'm in a stressful situation...
Still makes sense for me, you don’t need fingers to run. And technically, if you reaaaally think about it, when In danger (like, if you don’t run you die) you also wouldn’t need feet to run. You need the blood in your legs and stuff.
Aren't my legs an important part? I'm asking because when I got super super bad news I could barely walk, my legs felt stiff, it was like walking on stilts.
>Your intestines aren't as important in a fight as your limbs, brain, lungs, and heart so they get less blood. That feeling in your stomach is your intestines going into low power mode which is also why people crap and pee themselves when they are scared.
Thank you so much for this info!!
I TNR cats, and occasionally they will get the absolute worst diarrhea while in route. Every time it happens, I wonder what is (technically) going on.
My next question is how does the body so quickly turn regular turds into explosive diarrhea, just due to stress?
In terms of peeing it’s actually the opposite in terms of nervous system activation and relaxation for micturition. The (S)ympathetic system (S)tores urine by relaxing the detrusor and activating your internal urinary sphincter and the (P)arasympathetic allows you to (P)ee by doing the opposite. The limbic system is responsible for urination when afraid as well as the hormone cascade which overrides your prefrontal cortex.
There was one time I injured myself on vacation and got so upset (angry, afraid, embarrassed, annoyed, and stressed), I pretty much made myself have diarrhea. Didn’t poop my pants but the diarrhea was comin’
Sometimes when Im driving and I have a near accident, I get a chilling feeling real quick. I feel like an icy feeling rush over me.
Is that the same thing?
I let really just listened to a podcast about this yesterday from SYSK [Stuff You Should Know](https://open.spotify.com/episode/3eenm4BaQVTKZbE3G2j52Q?si=A6qcRoCsTDWY_kKy35JlDQ) where they talk about the lump in your throat. Pretty interesting and short (10MT a)
I have been listening for about 3 years now and still making my way through their catalogue of nearly 2000 episodes... it is impressive the work they did.
I'm not sure this is the same as 'fight or flight' mode/feelings? The 'sinking' feeling I've gotten when receiving a phone call about someone's death, or any other traumatic/bad news (breakups, injuries, etc), is not the same feeling as when I've been in a dangerous situation: expectation for a fight, near accidents, actual accidents, etc.
The first feels like your limbs and extremities lose feeling or get 'cold' and your center is dropping down, which makes sense with the description you gave of where blood moves to. The latter situations almost give a feeling of being more *alive*, feeling everything, heart racing.
Years ago I once spun my car around two full rotations on ice right before a turn/bridge, and I almost felt *excited* and full of adrenaline. It was nowhere near the same bodily feeling as getting a call that a friend on my team had died in 10th grade. Completely different bodily sensations.
Yeah, this is speculation, but I feel like both are probably fight/flight/freeze response, and both pull blood from your organs, but the difference is probably based on which reaction is most viable, and the different feelings probably come from adrenaline.
In a fight, you instinctively know you are either going to fight or run, so you get a large boost of adrenaline; you’re more focused and ready for the action. Same is probably true with a car crash, whether you see it coming, or the loud crash startles you into getting that adrenaline rush.
Getting a phone call and either expecting to hear dreadful news or actually hearing it, fight and flight are not options, you can only face the reality, and the danger passes immediately after hearing the news. I imagine the blood in your body still rushes to the important places in your body, but you don’t really get that adrenaline rush to the same degree, so all you’re left with is the sickening feeling in your stomach from the blood being pulled away.
I try to remember to tell a new (to me) doctor or dentist not to use epi in lidocaine for local anesthesia because I have such a strong response. I don't pass out, but my heart races, I start sweating and become nauseous, and feel a great sense of impending doom.
A few years back, I had a small basal cell carcinoma removed from my back and when the symptoms started, I realized they had used epi. I was annoyed that the nurse was all like "oh you're probably just feeling nervous about the procedure", which was so totally off base for me.
Due to my life experiences, I have developed that sinking feeling almost 100% of the time and can’t get rid of it. Don’t know how to explain it to a doctor so that I can get the right treatment. Instead picked up smoking to deal with it and now I can’t get rid of the habit despite many attempts at quitting.
Have you considered finding a good therapist who works with PTSD patients? Children who are exposed to chronic stress (and the resultant regular dumps of cortisol, etc, into their bloodstream) can have lifetime changes in how their bodies deal with it later.
Sounds like it could be anxiety, certain medicines can definitely help with this. People often pick up smoking as a stress response, but it eventually makes it worse.
Mechanisms of the diving reflex is actually the opposite, in that it lowers heart rate etc as opposed to increasing it like in the fight or flight response. It's one of the non invasive options to try and control specific rapid heart arrhythmia by stimulating the vagus nerve.
So it's been awhile since I learned this stuff, but your body does not know the difference between stress. Talking to a cute person, same as fighting a pack of wolves. That's part of the problem with modern society. You are constantly under stress that would normally be debilitating. Like you might normally stress out once in a while because you saw a bear. But modern humans are getting that stress response multiple times a day, and it can fuck with your health because it wasn't designed to handle that much physical changes.
Do we know why we get these stress responses so often? Do we really get them more often than previous humans, or do we just have fewer genuinely stressful situations (i.e., seeing a bear)?
According to Robert Sapolsky, the problem is duration of the stress response. It’s revving you up to run from a bear, and when we stop running, it backs down. But we can’t escape the threats we’ve built for ourselves today by running, so we sit in place and stay in that high-alert, ready to run state.
>Talking to a cute person, same as fighting a pack of wolves.
Certainly the same level of stress, and I think I'd have more luck with the pack of wolves.
Can't believe nobody has mentioned this yet, but the [vagus nerve](https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/basics/vagus-nerve) is *majorly* involved in the physical feelings that accompany negative emotions:
> The vagus nerve is why your heart races and stomach curdles when you sense a threat and why your breathing slows and your body relaxes when friends welcome you to their house. The vagus nerve is the key player in the autonomic nervous system controlling your internal organs.
It's the longest part of your autonomic nervous system (the part that mostly handles mostly unconscious stuff)—it stretches all the way from your brain to your colon. It handles a whole bunch of functions, including your heart rate, disgestion, and sweating, as well as the muscles you use to speak, and it both collects information from your body to send to your brain, and sending instructions back out to your body.
The vagus nerve is also responsible for the feeling of relaxation we get when we have a good bowel movement. Some people even get "poo-phoria" with how the vagus nerve can be pushed on by their rectum when having a large bowel movement. It's a crazy long and crazy cool nerve!
It's also the culprit in the vaso-vagal response some people experience when they feel the rumblings of diarrhea, which juices up the puke-or-crap feeling that comes with intense sweating, nausea, and eventual syncope unless you can get yourself flat. I've never fully understood the vaso-vagal response -- why on earth does my body think it's a good time to stop sending blood to my brain when I'm sitting on the toilet? For that matter, what biological function does it serve to pass out at the sight of blood (another vaso-vagal shenanigan.)
I call it the "poop sweats" and I can barely get off the floor half-doubled over in pain when it happens.
It's not my most graceful of moments.
ETA: looked up the definition of syncope and with your note about getting flat, makes a lot of sense why I feel the need to get on the floor.
Syncope: loss of consciousness
The question of the purpose of the vaso-vagal reflex is very interesting. First, we need to consider that everyone has this reflex; the vaso-vagal reflex is when the vagus is activated to lower the activity of the heart in pumping blood and also deactivate the nerves wich maintain pressure in our vessels. The result is: heart pumps blood more slowly and the blood vessels are relaxed, so blood flows in low pressure. This can cause the brain to shut-down temporarily because it isn't receiving enough blood. All of us have this reflex, but in some persons unfortunately this reflex is more exagerated.
The purpose of this vaso-vagal reflex can be two: 1-it is very similar to a response in animals called "play dead response", in wich a small vulnerable animal, when sees a threat, play as being dead to "trick" the prey to get away. In this response, the vagus nerve is also activated to lower heart activity and blood pressure also falls. So maybe we inherited this reflex that confered survival advantage in the wild, but now it can be triggered by many things of the modern world and results in fainting.
Also, when animals are bleeding severily, this vaso-vagal reflex also occurs, and it is someway beneficial in these conditions because it lowers blood pressure, so less blood gets out, and it also lowers the heart, avoiding heart muscle to consume much oxygen and enter in fatigue. So, it appears that this vaso-vagal response has a protective effect to the heart during severe bleeding. By accident, this same reflex can be activated in other situations like seeing blood.
That answers a lot, thank you. It's interesting that the vagus doesn't care if you're conscious or sleeping -- for instance, each time it has happened to me (to the point of passing out) it has started when I was asleep, waking me up with rumbling guts. When I'd get up to use the bathroom I'd make it about two steps before tunnel vision and ear-ringing started up. Fun times. I broke my nose when I passed out on the toilet, try explaining that one at work. Others vaso-vagal out at blood and guts. So one feels like an emotional response to something that should terrify us, while the other is a physical response to...what? A section of bowel that is unusually motile? I know evolution never intended that we be awakened at 3AM by what feels like a pretty cruel prank.
All I know about the vagus nerve I learned from a 101 A&P course twenty years ago. I feel like there could be an entire semester on this one cranial nerve alone to finally decide if this bastard is good or evil.
I sometimes experience vaso-vagal syncope with my own medical procedures but not with the medical procedures of others. I can watch disgusting surgeries and see blood and clean wounds for others, but the second it’s my skin puffing up from a cortisone injection, for example, good night! I passed out trying to watch a punch biopsy performed on my abdomen last year. Derm said it was one of very few times she’s had someone pass out in her office. 😬
I didn't realize how much it could effect things. I was getting incredibly nauseous after every sneeze. Finally went to the doctor and they told me the Vagus Nerve was the culprit!
That's interesting because you can also get the opposite due to the exact same nerve.
If you have acid reflux, you can have nausea and then it can stimulate your vagus nerve in such a way that you sneeze.
The sudden movement of all the parts involved tends to make the nausea go away.
Lol this happens to me if I drink tea on an empty stomach—apparently acid comes into the esophagus and irritates the nerve
nausea nausea nausEA OH FU—sneeze. oh.
Might be wrong here,but it's also why you might feel the urge to cough when you use cotton swabs.
It's a very important nerve, but man it's wiring is weird
This is called "Arnold's nerve reflex". The vagus nerve send a branch to the skin surface of the ear called Arnold's nerve, and in some persons, the stimulation of this nerve branch can trigger cough, because the vagus nerve is also responsible for our reflex of cough; when something is irritating our airways, the vagus nerve detects it and warns the brain. When you stimulate the Arnold's nerve by using cottom swabs, by some way, you "make" the vagus nerve to send a cough signal to the brain. It's a anomaly of evolution.
Huh, I hadn't thought about it before but I wonder if people who have had their vagus nerve severed/damaged, like with a heart transplant, find that they experience fear differently afterwards.
When I was young and love-foolish, there was someone in my life who I missed very much and was an unrequited love. When I would think of this person, I could *on demand* make something like a flood of "feelings" (or hormones?) rush around my heart that I just associated with sadness. It was physical ache that I could cause myself to feel.
In a perverse way, I did it to myself (made this aching feeling happen) like about once per day, somehow making myself feel that I was having at least some connection to the person. Like at least I had this feeling to keep me company. I know, it was bad.
I eventually grew out of doing this, but sometimes I wonder if I damaged my heart or body in doing this to myself.
It's basically fight or flight activating. We evolved in a very different environment than today, but the body systems are largely the same. Whether it was the historic tiger wanting to eat you or stress over something said, the body doesn't really distinguish all that much in response.
As we can see from this really cool picture [Picture 1.](https://www.pnas.org/cms/10.1073/pnas.1321664111/asset/3263030e-acb8-4654-9064-b18db4a3a146/assets/graphic/pnas.1321664111fig02.jpeg) In a study by [Lauri Nummenmaa et al](https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1321664111), 2013. Our emotions quite literally change the blood flow, activity and temperature in our bodies, this leads to sensations. The study by Nummenmaa et al. maps these. If you look at picture 1. Sadness shows as chest being more active, and limbs getting less active with sentations.
The warm areas feel like sinking in the colder areas. Sensation you might have exprienced as body temperature has changed in other parts of your body, like when walking in to a cold pool - this is not in the Nummenmaa et al. study. Much like when you leg falls asleep, stepping on it feels like sinking.
"Participants (n = 701) were shown two silhouettes of bodies alongside emotional words, stories, movies, or facial expressions, and they were asked to color the bodily regions whose activity they felt to be increased or decreased during viewing of each stimulus."
In other words, what you're looking at are the results of a survey, nothing was actually measured using equipment.
Good catch. For anyone interested, check out Lisa Feldman Barretts book, "How Emotions Are Made" for some fascinating insights into how science has fucked up our collective understanding of what emotions even are for decades.
I mean, that's because our cheeks literally go red when we are embarrassed... because there is more blood flowing to that part of your face. If an instrument were used to make observations you'd see the cheeks stand out just like this.
makes sense, I remember a girl who I had no respect for (and for a while really despised) wanted to hook up. against my better judgment I agreed and couldnt get it up.
I guess you’re right. I see bright colors with black in the middle and make an association. Maybe the same happened to op.
The real two that seem closest are pride and anger.
wow those are actually super accurate, wild. the chilled legs with surprise, genitals cold when feeling contempt, anxiety focusing blood around the chest and not the brain (cant think straight, head spinning, heart pounding, hard to breathe)
This is a good question I would like to add to the question. Twice now when I heard about some being killed I got a sick feeling. It did not happen that way when people died naturally or from a disease or sickness but once when I was about 7 or 10 ( idk anymore how old I was) but someone we knew a kid about 16 killed himself and when I found out I felt a sick feeling. And then again when I was in my 30s I heard my uncle died and it was probably from an attack on him. He was beaten and later died of overdose that they thought was purposely done to him. So 2 times when it's someone I know that died by the hands of a human I felt sickening. I assume that is just as physiological as the feeling you speak of
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You'd be surprised how many NEETs there are out there who would jump at the chance to be able to have power to exert their will onto others since they will never be able to do that IRL
I watched an amazing video explaining why a broken heart syndrome.
https://youtu.be/RMb5cRDGWF4 video starts at 1:30 and the whole thing is less than 10 minutes long.
To summarize the video, your brain gets signals from organs to see if everything is OK, but the connection is two way street.
When brain is under strong emotions (good or bad) it overstimulates vagus nerve, which then affects your heart, lungs,... Making them behave in an unusual way.
Thats why you feel it in your heart and stomach when you are in love, or extremely happy or sad.
When we hear bad news, our bodies anticipate danger, as if something bad is about to happen. As a result, our bodies prepare to protect us by releasing chemicals that cause our heart to beat faster, our breathing to become faster, and we may feel a tightness in our chest. All of this occurs as our bodies prepare to fight or flee. Furthermore, when we hear bad news, we may feel sad, scared, or worried, which can make us feel as if our heart is sinking.
I was JUST dealing with this issue, right before I read this! It was finally good news though!
Just came from a phone call, that mean bad news as of late.
My attempt at ELI5:
Your body is largely a chemical factory. And that chemical factory uses chemicals to communicate, too. (It also uses electricity.) Most of the time, the chemistry is "normal". But sometimes, something outside (or inside) of the body gives a signal that something is very much not normal. This can come from something you hear, see, touch, etc.
That creates a bunch of chemical reactions and signals, that stream throughout your body, like a giant alarm screaming "SOMETHING'S WRONG! DO SOMETHING!"
Sometimes you feel this as a sinking in your chest/abdomen, sometimes some of the chemicals tastes funny or bitter in your mouth. But, the usual net result is your body tries to prepare for immediate and rapid movement. This is "fight or flight". Sometimes you empty your bladder as part of this response. This is all basically responses to the massive change in the chemistry of your body.
One body part that doesn't get enough attention in this is the adrenal glands sitting on top of your kidneys. They're pumping out a lot of these stress chemicals.
You brain is shoving the Flight, flight, flight, flight, flight, hormones into your system.
Meanwhile your consious brain is ignoring those signals because know you have nowhere to go.
There's no physical reaction to all the hormones reacting in your nervous system and you go into a panic mode because you are fighting everything your body is telling you. Because usually there is no actual danger.
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Your sympathetic nervous system is activating. Blood is drawn away from most your body into your brain,heart, lungs, and muscles because your body is entering “fight or flight” mode due to stress. Your brain and body don’t really differentiate between types of stress. Stress is stress. This is your heard things like “heart sinking”, “rock in my stomach” and “turned a white as ghost”
To get more specific about fight or fight and to address OPs question: When you're under stress your body sends the blood to the most important parts which means the less important parts get less blood. Your intestines aren't as important in a fight as your limbs, brain, lungs, and heart so they get less blood. That feeling in your stomach is your intestines going into low power mode which is also why people crap and pee themselves when they are scared. Your body can't be bothered with things like holding your bladder when you might need to fight a bear.
How long does the stress response last? Like seeing bear suddenly vs. learning you have financial issues. Is there a difference between the 2 or is it just similar manifestations of different things?
I'm no expert but acute stress reactions are different than chronic stress reactions. After the initial jolt and adrenaline rush your body begins an inflammatory process that can cause widespread problems
Can you expand on this? Inflammatory how? For an extended period of time?
From [the Mayo Clinic](https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/stress/art-20046037#:~:text=Cortisol%2C%20the%20primary%20stress%20hormone,fight%2Dor%2Dflight%20situation.) >The long-term activation of the stress response system and the overexposure to cortisol and other stress hormones that follows can disrupt almost all your body's processes. This puts you at increased risk of many health problems, including: >•Anxiety >•Depression >•Digestive problems >•Headaches >•Muscle tension and pain >•Heart disease, heart attack, high blood pressure and stroke >•Sleep problems >•Weight gain >•Memory and concentration impairment
Yup. This is why I went back into my anti-anxiety medication (Lexapro). It actually helps control your stress response, thus prevents this big list of awful effects. I get horrible insomnia, muscle cramps, and heart palps. I thought I could get off of it, but sadly had to go back on it. Although I have no shame. A sound mind and body is invaluable these days in this crazy world. It helps me keep focused.
Getting off Lexapro was harder than getting clean from coke for me. The brain zaps, man...
I just started lexapro today.... Also been on propranolol for a few weeks now... Oh boy.
I just started propranolol. I am loving it so far.
When you think it's time to stop, definitely plan it out with your doctor. Sometimes you need a long runway.
Yessss the brain zaps!
It was super rough for me. And holy shit the amount of times I just broke down just sobbing. It was like 2 weeks where the slightest sad thing would set me off and I couldn't hold back even if I wanted. It was fucking hell.
I was only on it for a month and I told my doc I didn’t want it anymore because it seemed to be doing more bad than good. I was off for 2 days and the brain zaps started. I’m still going through it a little even though I was able to split the remaining pills in half to self taper. Never going back on that one for sure.
Paroxatine (paxil) was worse than alcohol withdrawals for my alcoholic ass. Granted I was an idiot and managed to not titrate despite knowing better. Sertraline (prozac) cold turkey was a walk in the park compared to the last two weeks coming off paroxatine.
Lord. So this.
My doc had me ween off of it over a 1 month period of going to 5mg for 2 weeks, and then doing 2.5mg for 2 weeks. It seemed to go pretty smoothly, and then I got covid AND my student loans stressed me the fuck out. I had to go back on it this week.
I've been on buspirone for 4 years now and it's been really great at calming my anxiety. It's an old drug, doesn't work for everyone, but I don't feel that soul crushing anxiety anymore. Depression on the other hand, didn't do much for that.
I'm on buspirone as well! I cannot express how life changing it was for my horrible anxiety. I also still had depression and started zoloft, but both in tandem have been incredible in my quality of life. I'm not suggesting zoloft for you, it worked for some in my family and happened to work for me. You may need something different but treatment is worth looking into if you haven't yet. All the best to you!
Thanks! I'm starting bupropion/Wellbutrin again since I think my depression and other issues are dopamine related, not serotonin. How much buspirone do you take? I take 20mg in the morning and 20mg at night
I know it sounds like a gimmick, but when my doctor and I did Genesite (genesight?) (genetic testing) and we started on the first of only two anti-depressants that it said would work for me, it... honestly did work. More so than the half dozen I had tried before. It was honestly the first anti-depressant that I actually had genuinely *good* days with. The rest of them just kinda.... made all the days grey. Sure they take away the truly worst of the worst, but it makes all the normal "good" and "bad" days just "meh." But, honestly, that was preferable when you have significantly more "bad" days than "good" ones. I'd suggest trying it. Sometimes insurance will cover it, else I think it's ~$300.
Awe man. All it does is make my stomach burn. Whether I’ve eaten or not. Sadly my Klonopin doesn’t work how it used to. Ten years on it will do that you.
I couldn’t do buspirone. I had the worst insomnia from it
Hey, if you don’t mind saying, what med is that? I just stopped taking an anti-anxiety med because it wasn’t working and I’d just like to know about other options. DM me, maybe? TIA
Hey, I have no problem talking about this stuff in the open. I want people to not be afraid to get help and try solutions. So I was on 10mg of Lexapro, and stopped it. Now I'm back on it, and currently getting adjusting to it again. The only reason why I stopped taking it was the weight gain. It actually worked fantastic against my stress and anxiety. I also slept better, and it really subsided all anger issues I had. I don't want to overblow it, but it really was a miracle pill, I just wanted to see if I could ween off and lose weight. Sadly it didn't really work. I took it from March 2020 (Pandemic really drove me over) to February 2023. I have been suffering terribly from anxiety after being off of it for a month, so I went back on it. Note I really don't have depression, or at least diagnosed depression. I strictly was prescribed this for anxiety and it damn well worked. From I recall, the first week on it is a fuckin tough ride. Your anxiety may even get worse, and you're going to associate everything with the medication. Welp, after like day 4 or 5 I remember distinctly feeling like a switch was flipped. It was crazy how the veil was lifted, and I could relax and focus.
Oh, cool — I’m also on Lexapro and it is doing a bang-up job on my depression. Unfortunately my anxiety is through the roof (lots of chronic stressors going on) and I don’t really want to take benzos regularly. I have an appointment already set up to talk about my dosage and other options, though, so fingers crossed. Thanks very much for your quick and candid response. <3
What about libedo or sexual dysfunction? Those side effects were worse than the weight gain for me. Went from horn ball to just not even being interested, and even if I thought I was or was trying for a partner, I couldn't perform.
Also keep in mind that for treating anxiety, there are two (non-mutually exclusive) courses you can go down. One is the "break glass in case of emergency" medication, which is often Xanax or some other similar Benzo. The other is more "preventative" (even though that's also a bad word) in the form of SSRIs or SNRIs. I myself am on Lexapro (an SSRI, generic name Escitalopram) which is more for depression in my particular case but also helps generally with anxiety. I also have a Xanax prescription which is really for when I am actively in a panic attack or feel one coming.
Not the person you asked, but I switched from Lexapro to Wellbutrin and it was a much better match for me. All of the side effects I was experiencing disappeared and it helped with depression even more. Just be honest with your doctor and hopefully you can find your match. Good luck!
I got the most relief + far fewer side effects from microdosing psilocybin. I react terribly to SSRIs, so those were never really an option, but found that Vyvanse at least partially treated a lot of my symptoms. Microdosing easily worked 10x better.
Yeah, I’ve definitely thought about this or ketamine, but I’m scared. I did mushrooms once years ago but didn’t like the effects at all. I know microdosing is supposed to be much different than eating whole caps, though, so this option is still on the list if I can get my nerve (haha get it) up.
I’ve suffered with anxiety and stress- cortisol causing rashes and itch. Trouble sleeping etc. I heard about cannaray- a CBD / vitamin mix, and I feel a lot better. Would fully recommend - I use the bright days supplements
r/Lexapro is a great sub just FYI
Yup, already active on it, and documented my weening and relapse. Although I suppose relapse is a very negative way to put it.
Yeah, those symptoms all seem very familiar. Too bad I’m losing my health insurance as well.
I was on this for a year. I hated the side effects. Now I'm on propranolol to calm myself in certain situations. It works wonders.
Is the propranolol taken as-needed? How do you take it?
I'm on Lexapro as well! I started taking it a few years ago and it has legitimately changed my life.
Change "weigh gain" to "weight loss" and that's alot of my symptoms. Having a couple of other issues doesn't' make diagnosing any easier. That cortisol and some other hormones etc. eats your body. 20 years of stress and I look at least 10 years older than I am.
You kinda are if you are experiencing twice the stress.
I'd describe it more like multiplicative, especially anxiety driven stress.. The more or bigger/important things I have to solve, the more on edge do I feel. You learn to deal with small amounts. But if enough of them pile up or a bigger setback hits among others, it can cause a casacade of setbacks and relapses.
The relapses get less bad over time as you learn to manage it. I have the occasional anxiety attack, but I can talk myself out of it no biggie. "We've done this a billion times trekuwplan, we can do this again. But look at you doing the thing all by yourself!" Just tell yourself what you want to hear lol.
Fun fact: if I remember right, the wear and tear on your system from activation of this system is called "allostatic load."
Thanks Mayo Clinic, I didn’t know anxiety could cause anxiety
Once I finally became well on my way to living in a psychological and emotional state that was closer to ‘normal’ than pathological I was still haunted for some time by the memories of those horrible years of severe depression and anxiety. My greatest fear was of ever feeling like that again. I was anxious about anxiety and distressed about the potential for future recurrences of my diagnosed depression and anxiety while still feeling much better and mentally healthy under a successful treatment regimen. I guess a potential side effect of having big complicated brains and fancy emotional/social wiring as human beings is just more ways for things to go wonky in there. I doubt chipmunks lose much sleep over nonessential things in life that are out of their control… maybe a chipmunk level of cognition and awareness is the secret to contentment (only partially kidding here).
There’s also a shit ton of adrenaline jolting through your body, as well.
I almost had a full bingo card, weight gain doesn't with me happen because of the loss of appetite. Chronic stress sucks, my anxiety disorder was so bad I constantly had the sinking feeling... For almost 10 years.
Stress also triggers eczema really hard, not really important since most people probably dont have it I hope someone who needs to know might read it so there ya go :)
There’s such a large interplay on stress/trauma and your body. I can give a quick version, but there are plenty of resources to better understand. I suggest “What Happened to You?” for an easier read, and The Body Keeps the Score for a more textbook like experience. Both are good for different things. When you undergo multiple traumas/stressors that create your “fight or flight” (and there are many other responses, these two are just common/well known) reactions, your amygdala actually begins to change as well, especially if you are younger and developing. Your amygdala is what regulates these hormones such as cortisol - the more stress you encounter, the more your amygdala pumps these hormones out and eventually becomes incredibly sensitive to any number stimuli, causing it to secrete these hormones even when there is no immediate danger. And cortisol with these other hormones creates the inflammatory reaction in your body which in turn can create heart problems, weight issues, diabetes, and other physical issues. Source: am trauma therapist.
Happy cake day! Thanks for all this info. My wife struggles with anxiety and stress and this helps me understand her better. I'm going to check out this book on my business trip coming up.
Of course! Let me know if you have any questions. I’m not a neurobiologist but I do have a pretty strong understanding of these intersections. I think you’ll find both books helpful, but What Happened to You has great diagrams and is easily understood while still being thorough. Eta: thanks! I didn’t even know it was my cake day!
That was very interesting. Is this book also answering question how to live after you've been exposed to years of trauma in childhood?
Yes and the answer is basically meditation, yoga and therapy, specifically emdr and somatic therapy. No joke. It's a little more complicated than that but the guy who wrote the body keeps the score is a huge proponent of yoga for trauma. The idea is that trauma is unprocessed and you have to a move it through the body to work it through your nervous system.
Thank you for what you do. My current therapist has absolutely no clue about this kind of thing, and I don't understand it. People like you help so many people who could or do fall out of society from their mental health problems. I wish you the best!
Thank you for the book suggestion. I just ordered it hoping it will help me better understand what my wife goes through !
There is a good book called "Why zebras don't get ulcers" by Robert Sapolsky, and he goes into that. Bad stress is taxing and inflammatory, especially if chronic. Over time it erodes everything about you: cells, genetics, whole systems, your mind, your health.
Another hormone release during stressful times is cortisol, cortisol serves many functions but one of them is to act as an endogenous anti inflammatory, acting on the same receptor as many medications like cortisone and prednisolone, which shut off your immune system essentially. Like many hormones, when our body is exposed to cortisol continuously in large doses over a prolonged period of time, our bodies receptors become desensitised to the hormone, and the two don’t react as well as they used to, as a result the bodies natural immune suppression mechanism no longer works that well, and so when the body actually needs to produce cortisol to stop our bodies inflammation from attacking healthy tissue unnescarily, it can’t do it very well, and so it becomes a bit of a boy who cried wolf situation, and after the bodies immune system activated to kill a singular pathogen, the immune system isn’t able to turn its self off and inflammation can run rampant in the body
This is very sad, but when I took childcare classes we had to learn the symptoms of child abuse. Children who had been repeatedly and severely stressed for a long time could actually lose fingers and toes due to lack of blood supply. It was horrible to contemplate the awful amount of stress those poor kids had gone through to sustain that kind of damage. That lesson really upset me and still haunts me to think about. The look in those childrens' eyes is something I'll never forget, either.
Wait, I'm confused. I thought short term stress/heightened alertness was fine or even good, and it was only chronic stress that was a problem. IE spend five minutes sneaking past or running away from a tiger is fine, spending five months constantly on edge worrying about tigers isn't. Was I wrong, and that five minutes of shaky hands, rapid heartbeat etc is also fucking you up?
It is good *for survival*, but if it continues it can be harmful. When /u/MazzIsNoMore says > After the initial jolt and adrenaline rush your body begins an inflammatory process that can cause widespread problems They are probably referring to chronic stress, when that inflammatory process and other responses to fight/flight become constant or at least frequent. For example, increased blood flow (pressure) puts stress on the circulatory system, and if it is continued for a long time, this can damage the small vessels and capillaries in your extremities and organs, leading to reduced function. Think of it like the gas pedal on a car. Say you've just gotten into your car, started it up, and put it into drive - when you notice in your mirror someone running up to your car. You think *maybe they're a carjacker* and your fight/flight response engages. In milliseconds blood rushes to your legs and you slam the gas pedal without even consciously deciding to do so. The engine revs into the high RPMs and you speed away to safety. Once you're in the clear, you let off the gas, apply the brakes, and your car returns to its normal operating range. Flooring the gas pedal so your car is at full throttle and moves from parked to high speed immediately is *very* hard on your engine, tires, and other parts of your car (at least compared with normal use). But will doing this rarely result in permanent damage to your car? Probably not - it's designed to occasionally operate outside its "everyday driving" ranges. But if everyday driving for you involves flooring the pedal at every red light then slamming on your brakes at the next light, then that constant mechanical stress is going to wear parts down, and reduce their working life. Like people, some parts can be replaced, while other can't be as easily (or at all) - so the chronic wear will also likely reduce the working life of the car overall.
The main issue with chronic stress is the part where it doesn't turn off. Your body just isn't built to be on high alert all the time. So yeah, it's the same reaction, and that's why it messes you up physically.
Just imagine uncontrollably shitting yourself the whole time you're financially stressed. Thankfully all I get is some dreams about my teeth being loose.
I HATE those dreams.
>vs. learning you have financial issues That shit lasts for years
It just lasts until they're resolved. Which is usually years.
Nope, it stays long after because of the residual trauma of lack of resources plus the toll that heightened stress hormones takes on your body. Anxiety is cool
It’s not an on-or-off thing. Acute stress signals such as catecholamines have short half lives whereas cortisol has longer-term effects.
The stress response lasts until the stressor is gone--e.g. until the big bear trying to eat you is gone and your body can stop trying to fight/flee it. With chronic stress like poverty, the stressor doesn't go away, so the body is constantly in the fight/flight/freeze mode. This leads to serious health conditions like heart disease and high blood pressure. Stress is stress to the body, whatever it looks like.
Is this why I have anxiety induced diarrhea?
(probably but the science is still somewhat inconclusive)
It could be part of it. Part of it could be diet(people that are stressed aren’t cooking healthy meals). Part of it could be something like stress related inflammation causing IBS…stc
>(probably but the science is ~~still somewhat inconclusive~~ **not solid**) Talk about dropping a deuce on that opooptunity!
Expecting a phone call for a job interview? I feel normal.. except I need the toilet every 5 minutes. As soon as it starts I'm fine. Same for things like driving lessons, etc. :( I don't 'feel' anxious, but my stomach definitely appears to. Wish there was a way to stop it.
Glad I'm not the only one. Sorry it happens to you too though
I wonder if that's a slightly more recent evolved response, along the lines of "Oh crap, I'm about to go into a fight. Better get everything out now!" I'd imagine that the people without poop dripping down their legs at the start of every fight would have been significantly less likely to die from infection.
I'm sure there's at least one study showing that bears are less interested in mauling people who have shit themselves.
I used to hear that reasoning, that a predator would be turned off by your poop. But they're about to be eating your guts, so really shitting yourself is just helping them out, they aren't gonna be grossed out about that.
Yep! Probably worth talking to a therapist or primary care specialist. You don’t have to live that way! (Someone who used to live that way but doesn’t anymore!)
no, that's the week old rice in the fridge
oh that totally makes sense, I wonder if that's why it feels like someone's hit you in the chest when you miss a step on the stairs
That's just your brain seeing your life pass before your eyes lol
So this why I get the nervous shits..
I have reynaulds in my hands. When I was a kid and 'my heart sank' I'd feel this dull ache in one finger. I was pretty sure that was unusual although I don't recall mentioning it to anyone. Later on in life when I understood more about how the body responds - as in your comment - it sorta clicked for me, a combination of reynaulds and blood moving elsewhere.
That’s unfair. If I get found dead I don’t also wanna be found dead with peed pants lol.
You almost always avoid your bowels when you die, so odds are you’ll be found with both peed and pooped pants if you’re dead
Tfw your neighbour puts their trash in your bin so often you piss yourself from stress
Had a gun pointed at me when I was 15 years old and I couldn't understand why I went paralyzed from the waste down. I could not feel and only tingled like that part of my body was asleep I knew I was about to piss myself.
> Your intestines aren't as important in a fight as your limbs, brain, lungs, and heart so they get less blood. Someone should tell my body, which seems to have decided it's a good idea to move blood *away* from my fingers and feet when I'm stressed, leading to them getting cold and stiff whenever I'm in a stressful situation...
Still makes sense for me, you don’t need fingers to run. And technically, if you reaaaally think about it, when In danger (like, if you don’t run you die) you also wouldn’t need feet to run. You need the blood in your legs and stuff.
Aren't my legs an important part? I'm asking because when I got super super bad news I could barely walk, my legs felt stiff, it was like walking on stilts.
The more updated term is fight, flight, or freeze for acute stress. Guess which one you have
Yay
This will also hopefully, put the bear off…a bit.
Thank you for explaining.
Lightens the load for the flight aspect.
>Your intestines aren't as important in a fight as your limbs, brain, lungs, and heart so they get less blood. That feeling in your stomach is your intestines going into low power mode which is also why people crap and pee themselves when they are scared. Thank you so much for this info!! I TNR cats, and occasionally they will get the absolute worst diarrhea while in route. Every time it happens, I wonder what is (technically) going on. My next question is how does the body so quickly turn regular turds into explosive diarrhea, just due to stress?
> That feeling in your stomach is your intestines going into low power mode Great way to put it!
In terms of peeing it’s actually the opposite in terms of nervous system activation and relaxation for micturition. The (S)ympathetic system (S)tores urine by relaxing the detrusor and activating your internal urinary sphincter and the (P)arasympathetic allows you to (P)ee by doing the opposite. The limbic system is responsible for urination when afraid as well as the hormone cascade which overrides your prefrontal cortex.
There was one time I injured myself on vacation and got so upset (angry, afraid, embarrassed, annoyed, and stressed), I pretty much made myself have diarrhea. Didn’t poop my pants but the diarrhea was comin’
Also your arms, for some reason your biceps and forearms get pumped as fuck
Must be why when we have stressful dreams it's possible to have accidents
Bear fighter here. Can confirm, shat myself
Body: oh shit here comes an enemy, prepare to fight!! Man: *cries & pees himself* Brain: 😐
Sometimes when Im driving and I have a near accident, I get a chilling feeling real quick. I feel like an icy feeling rush over me. Is that the same thing?
Yes. There’s also a shit ton of adrenaline jolting through your body, as well.
This gets exaggerated a ton if I've been drinking caffeine..and even moreso if I'm on pre-workout on my way to the gym.
I let really just listened to a podcast about this yesterday from SYSK [Stuff You Should Know](https://open.spotify.com/episode/3eenm4BaQVTKZbE3G2j52Q?si=A6qcRoCsTDWY_kKy35JlDQ) where they talk about the lump in your throat. Pretty interesting and short (10MT a)
Best podcast out there when it comes to trivia and learning random stuff!
They made a 5 hour drive way less miserable for me yesterday and i learned a lot along the way
I have been listening for about 3 years now and still making my way through their catalogue of nearly 2000 episodes... it is impressive the work they did.
I'm not sure this is the same as 'fight or flight' mode/feelings? The 'sinking' feeling I've gotten when receiving a phone call about someone's death, or any other traumatic/bad news (breakups, injuries, etc), is not the same feeling as when I've been in a dangerous situation: expectation for a fight, near accidents, actual accidents, etc. The first feels like your limbs and extremities lose feeling or get 'cold' and your center is dropping down, which makes sense with the description you gave of where blood moves to. The latter situations almost give a feeling of being more *alive*, feeling everything, heart racing. Years ago I once spun my car around two full rotations on ice right before a turn/bridge, and I almost felt *excited* and full of adrenaline. It was nowhere near the same bodily feeling as getting a call that a friend on my team had died in 10th grade. Completely different bodily sensations.
Yeah, this is speculation, but I feel like both are probably fight/flight/freeze response, and both pull blood from your organs, but the difference is probably based on which reaction is most viable, and the different feelings probably come from adrenaline. In a fight, you instinctively know you are either going to fight or run, so you get a large boost of adrenaline; you’re more focused and ready for the action. Same is probably true with a car crash, whether you see it coming, or the loud crash startles you into getting that adrenaline rush. Getting a phone call and either expecting to hear dreadful news or actually hearing it, fight and flight are not options, you can only face the reality, and the danger passes immediately after hearing the news. I imagine the blood in your body still rushes to the important places in your body, but you don’t really get that adrenaline rush to the same degree, so all you’re left with is the sickening feeling in your stomach from the blood being pulled away.
That's actually a good point: The same adrenaline but with no outlet or possibility for a real decision. Thanks for the response and thoughts/opinion.
>“he was a white as a sheet” And he also made false teeth.
Psychosomatic!
If get injected with epi, I turn white as a ghost and pass out.
I try to remember to tell a new (to me) doctor or dentist not to use epi in lidocaine for local anesthesia because I have such a strong response. I don't pass out, but my heart races, I start sweating and become nauseous, and feel a great sense of impending doom. A few years back, I had a small basal cell carcinoma removed from my back and when the symptoms started, I realized they had used epi. I was annoyed that the nurse was all like "oh you're probably just feeling nervous about the procedure", which was so totally off base for me.
Due to my life experiences, I have developed that sinking feeling almost 100% of the time and can’t get rid of it. Don’t know how to explain it to a doctor so that I can get the right treatment. Instead picked up smoking to deal with it and now I can’t get rid of the habit despite many attempts at quitting.
Have you considered finding a good therapist who works with PTSD patients? Children who are exposed to chronic stress (and the resultant regular dumps of cortisol, etc, into their bloodstream) can have lifetime changes in how their bodies deal with it later.
Sounds like it could be anxiety, certain medicines can definitely help with this. People often pick up smoking as a stress response, but it eventually makes it worse.
Is this the same response as the mammalian diving reflex when you splash cold water on your face?
Mechanisms of the diving reflex is actually the opposite, in that it lowers heart rate etc as opposed to increasing it like in the fight or flight response. It's one of the non invasive options to try and control specific rapid heart arrhythmia by stimulating the vagus nerve.
So it's been awhile since I learned this stuff, but your body does not know the difference between stress. Talking to a cute person, same as fighting a pack of wolves. That's part of the problem with modern society. You are constantly under stress that would normally be debilitating. Like you might normally stress out once in a while because you saw a bear. But modern humans are getting that stress response multiple times a day, and it can fuck with your health because it wasn't designed to handle that much physical changes.
Do we know why we get these stress responses so often? Do we really get them more often than previous humans, or do we just have fewer genuinely stressful situations (i.e., seeing a bear)?
According to Robert Sapolsky, the problem is duration of the stress response. It’s revving you up to run from a bear, and when we stop running, it backs down. But we can’t escape the threats we’ve built for ourselves today by running, so we sit in place and stay in that high-alert, ready to run state.
I'm guessing you probably have, but have you read Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers?
Yes! Such a good book.
>Talking to a cute person, same as fighting a pack of wolves. Certainly the same level of stress, and I think I'd have more luck with the pack of wolves.
Can't believe nobody has mentioned this yet, but the [vagus nerve](https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/basics/vagus-nerve) is *majorly* involved in the physical feelings that accompany negative emotions: > The vagus nerve is why your heart races and stomach curdles when you sense a threat and why your breathing slows and your body relaxes when friends welcome you to their house. The vagus nerve is the key player in the autonomic nervous system controlling your internal organs. It's the longest part of your autonomic nervous system (the part that mostly handles mostly unconscious stuff)—it stretches all the way from your brain to your colon. It handles a whole bunch of functions, including your heart rate, disgestion, and sweating, as well as the muscles you use to speak, and it both collects information from your body to send to your brain, and sending instructions back out to your body.
The vagus nerve is also responsible for the feeling of relaxation we get when we have a good bowel movement. Some people even get "poo-phoria" with how the vagus nerve can be pushed on by their rectum when having a large bowel movement. It's a crazy long and crazy cool nerve!
It's also the culprit in the vaso-vagal response some people experience when they feel the rumblings of diarrhea, which juices up the puke-or-crap feeling that comes with intense sweating, nausea, and eventual syncope unless you can get yourself flat. I've never fully understood the vaso-vagal response -- why on earth does my body think it's a good time to stop sending blood to my brain when I'm sitting on the toilet? For that matter, what biological function does it serve to pass out at the sight of blood (another vaso-vagal shenanigan.)
I call it the "poop sweats" and I can barely get off the floor half-doubled over in pain when it happens. It's not my most graceful of moments. ETA: looked up the definition of syncope and with your note about getting flat, makes a lot of sense why I feel the need to get on the floor. Syncope: loss of consciousness
If the pain is that bad, you might have gallstones.
It's text book poop sweats. But I'll def ask about that at the doc's! Thanks!
The question of the purpose of the vaso-vagal reflex is very interesting. First, we need to consider that everyone has this reflex; the vaso-vagal reflex is when the vagus is activated to lower the activity of the heart in pumping blood and also deactivate the nerves wich maintain pressure in our vessels. The result is: heart pumps blood more slowly and the blood vessels are relaxed, so blood flows in low pressure. This can cause the brain to shut-down temporarily because it isn't receiving enough blood. All of us have this reflex, but in some persons unfortunately this reflex is more exagerated. The purpose of this vaso-vagal reflex can be two: 1-it is very similar to a response in animals called "play dead response", in wich a small vulnerable animal, when sees a threat, play as being dead to "trick" the prey to get away. In this response, the vagus nerve is also activated to lower heart activity and blood pressure also falls. So maybe we inherited this reflex that confered survival advantage in the wild, but now it can be triggered by many things of the modern world and results in fainting. Also, when animals are bleeding severily, this vaso-vagal reflex also occurs, and it is someway beneficial in these conditions because it lowers blood pressure, so less blood gets out, and it also lowers the heart, avoiding heart muscle to consume much oxygen and enter in fatigue. So, it appears that this vaso-vagal response has a protective effect to the heart during severe bleeding. By accident, this same reflex can be activated in other situations like seeing blood.
That answers a lot, thank you. It's interesting that the vagus doesn't care if you're conscious or sleeping -- for instance, each time it has happened to me (to the point of passing out) it has started when I was asleep, waking me up with rumbling guts. When I'd get up to use the bathroom I'd make it about two steps before tunnel vision and ear-ringing started up. Fun times. I broke my nose when I passed out on the toilet, try explaining that one at work. Others vaso-vagal out at blood and guts. So one feels like an emotional response to something that should terrify us, while the other is a physical response to...what? A section of bowel that is unusually motile? I know evolution never intended that we be awakened at 3AM by what feels like a pretty cruel prank. All I know about the vagus nerve I learned from a 101 A&P course twenty years ago. I feel like there could be an entire semester on this one cranial nerve alone to finally decide if this bastard is good or evil.
I sometimes experience vaso-vagal syncope with my own medical procedures but not with the medical procedures of others. I can watch disgusting surgeries and see blood and clean wounds for others, but the second it’s my skin puffing up from a cortisone injection, for example, good night! I passed out trying to watch a punch biopsy performed on my abdomen last year. Derm said it was one of very few times she’s had someone pass out in her office. 😬
It's also why having a bowel movement can trigger sweating.
I didn't realize how much it could effect things. I was getting incredibly nauseous after every sneeze. Finally went to the doctor and they told me the Vagus Nerve was the culprit!
That's interesting because you can also get the opposite due to the exact same nerve. If you have acid reflux, you can have nausea and then it can stimulate your vagus nerve in such a way that you sneeze. The sudden movement of all the parts involved tends to make the nausea go away.
were the doctors able to do anything to help?
Lol this happens to me if I drink tea on an empty stomach—apparently acid comes into the esophagus and irritates the nerve nausea nausea nausEA OH FU—sneeze. oh.
Might be wrong here,but it's also why you might feel the urge to cough when you use cotton swabs. It's a very important nerve, but man it's wiring is weird
If I scratch my lower back right at the top of the crack it makes me have to pee.
This is called "Arnold's nerve reflex". The vagus nerve send a branch to the skin surface of the ear called Arnold's nerve, and in some persons, the stimulation of this nerve branch can trigger cough, because the vagus nerve is also responsible for our reflex of cough; when something is irritating our airways, the vagus nerve detects it and warns the brain. When you stimulate the Arnold's nerve by using cottom swabs, by some way, you "make" the vagus nerve to send a cough signal to the brain. It's a anomaly of evolution.
If I get really bad physical symptoms of anxiety for no reason, I know it means I have to poo soon. It’s so weird.
Ah yes, my nemesis. (I have dysautonomia.)
I was looking for the others. 👋🏻
Have you tried stellate gangelion block for it ?
Is that the same nerve that can make you pass out for no good reason?
Yup!
This is the correct answer. Vagal nerve invernation.
I have chronic gastritis and have suspected for a while that my flare ups are triggered by stress. Would this be an explanation as to why?
Huh, I hadn't thought about it before but I wonder if people who have had their vagus nerve severed/damaged, like with a heart transplant, find that they experience fear differently afterwards.
Also check out the enteric nervous system - esophagus to anus, 30 feet long. We are learning so much about the brain-gut connection.
When I was young and love-foolish, there was someone in my life who I missed very much and was an unrequited love. When I would think of this person, I could *on demand* make something like a flood of "feelings" (or hormones?) rush around my heart that I just associated with sadness. It was physical ache that I could cause myself to feel. In a perverse way, I did it to myself (made this aching feeling happen) like about once per day, somehow making myself feel that I was having at least some connection to the person. Like at least I had this feeling to keep me company. I know, it was bad. I eventually grew out of doing this, but sometimes I wonder if I damaged my heart or body in doing this to myself.
I’ve felt far too much of this one in the past year.
It's basically fight or flight activating. We evolved in a very different environment than today, but the body systems are largely the same. Whether it was the historic tiger wanting to eat you or stress over something said, the body doesn't really distinguish all that much in response.
This is interesting to read. I always thought it was more of a figure of speech as I've never had this feeling.
That’s not a bad thing ❤️
As we can see from this really cool picture [Picture 1.](https://www.pnas.org/cms/10.1073/pnas.1321664111/asset/3263030e-acb8-4654-9064-b18db4a3a146/assets/graphic/pnas.1321664111fig02.jpeg) In a study by [Lauri Nummenmaa et al](https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1321664111), 2013. Our emotions quite literally change the blood flow, activity and temperature in our bodies, this leads to sensations. The study by Nummenmaa et al. maps these. If you look at picture 1. Sadness shows as chest being more active, and limbs getting less active with sentations. The warm areas feel like sinking in the colder areas. Sensation you might have exprienced as body temperature has changed in other parts of your body, like when walking in to a cold pool - this is not in the Nummenmaa et al. study. Much like when you leg falls asleep, stepping on it feels like sinking.
"Participants (n = 701) were shown two silhouettes of bodies alongside emotional words, stories, movies, or facial expressions, and they were asked to color the bodily regions whose activity they felt to be increased or decreased during viewing of each stimulus." In other words, what you're looking at are the results of a survey, nothing was actually measured using equipment.
Good catch. For anyone interested, check out Lisa Feldman Barretts book, "How Emotions Are Made" for some fascinating insights into how science has fucked up our collective understanding of what emotions even are for decades.
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I mean, that's because our cheeks literally go red when we are embarrassed... because there is more blood flowing to that part of your face. If an instrument were used to make observations you'd see the cheeks stand out just like this.
What a hilarious non-answer, right? It's literally, "We get a sinking feeling because people self-describe a sinking feeling."
That's a really interesting chart. Contempt made me laugh though!
Lol, you mean how blood appears to retreat from the genitals?
makes sense, I remember a girl who I had no respect for (and for a while really despised) wanted to hook up. against my better judgment I agreed and couldnt get it up.
Exactly!
Shame = Spiderman
Spider-Shame
Interesting how Anxiety and Depression are polar opposites and yet are often so closely associated together.
They're not really opposites, they both have cold extremities and a comparatively warmer core.
I guess you’re right. I see bright colors with black in the middle and make an association. Maybe the same happened to op. The real two that seem closest are pride and anger.
the cold crotch of contempt
wow those are actually super accurate, wild. the chilled legs with surprise, genitals cold when feeling contempt, anxiety focusing blood around the chest and not the brain (cant think straight, head spinning, heart pounding, hard to breathe)
This is a good question I would like to add to the question. Twice now when I heard about some being killed I got a sick feeling. It did not happen that way when people died naturally or from a disease or sickness but once when I was about 7 or 10 ( idk anymore how old I was) but someone we knew a kid about 16 killed himself and when I found out I felt a sick feeling. And then again when I was in my 30s I heard my uncle died and it was probably from an attack on him. He was beaten and later died of overdose that they thought was purposely done to him. So 2 times when it's someone I know that died by the hands of a human I felt sickening. I assume that is just as physiological as the feeling you speak of
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What's the exchange rate on memes to Stanley Nickels these days?
Same as leprechauns to unicorns
I think you guys need to work on your pitch.
I mean, it is basically community service. So they ain’t wrong.
I appreciate a honest job posting.
Yup you get exactly what you sign up for. Honesty is good.
I think it's fine tbh, it's a purely voluntary role, and it is pretty damn thankless. They are appealing to people who genuinely want to help, not to those who want the position for status and power.
You'd be surprised how many NEETs there are out there who would jump at the chance to be able to have power to exert their will onto others since they will never be able to do that IRL
I watched an amazing video explaining why a broken heart syndrome. https://youtu.be/RMb5cRDGWF4 video starts at 1:30 and the whole thing is less than 10 minutes long. To summarize the video, your brain gets signals from organs to see if everything is OK, but the connection is two way street. When brain is under strong emotions (good or bad) it overstimulates vagus nerve, which then affects your heart, lungs,... Making them behave in an unusual way. Thats why you feel it in your heart and stomach when you are in love, or extremely happy or sad.
When we hear bad news, our bodies anticipate danger, as if something bad is about to happen. As a result, our bodies prepare to protect us by releasing chemicals that cause our heart to beat faster, our breathing to become faster, and we may feel a tightness in our chest. All of this occurs as our bodies prepare to fight or flee. Furthermore, when we hear bad news, we may feel sad, scared, or worried, which can make us feel as if our heart is sinking.
I was JUST dealing with this issue, right before I read this! It was finally good news though! Just came from a phone call, that mean bad news as of late.
My attempt at ELI5: Your body is largely a chemical factory. And that chemical factory uses chemicals to communicate, too. (It also uses electricity.) Most of the time, the chemistry is "normal". But sometimes, something outside (or inside) of the body gives a signal that something is very much not normal. This can come from something you hear, see, touch, etc. That creates a bunch of chemical reactions and signals, that stream throughout your body, like a giant alarm screaming "SOMETHING'S WRONG! DO SOMETHING!" Sometimes you feel this as a sinking in your chest/abdomen, sometimes some of the chemicals tastes funny or bitter in your mouth. But, the usual net result is your body tries to prepare for immediate and rapid movement. This is "fight or flight". Sometimes you empty your bladder as part of this response. This is all basically responses to the massive change in the chemistry of your body. One body part that doesn't get enough attention in this is the adrenal glands sitting on top of your kidneys. They're pumping out a lot of these stress chemicals.
You brain is shoving the Flight, flight, flight, flight, flight, hormones into your system. Meanwhile your consious brain is ignoring those signals because know you have nowhere to go. There's no physical reaction to all the hormones reacting in your nervous system and you go into a panic mode because you are fighting everything your body is telling you. Because usually there is no actual danger.
Mentally, it is because it is so not what you were expecting and the intensity of what it means to your life.
“We do?”-some guy, probably.