6 Odd Things That Happen To Your Body Right Before You Have An Emotional Breakdown
Your body is trying to warn you that a breakdown is imminent.
filadendron | Canva On a technical level, a nervous breakdown is categorized as a stressful situation that brings about a person's inability to function normally in daily life. Nervous breakdowns are usually brought on by stress and anxiety when a person feels overwhelmed in some aspect of their life. Work, relationships, and social stress can all be the causes of a mental breakdown.
It's important to note that a nervous breakdown is not a medical condition; the name itself is not a medical term. However, it can be a sign that some mental issues need to be addressed and resolved. It's both your mind and your body's way of telling you that you've reached a limit.
Here are six things that happen to your body right before you have an emotional breakdown:
1. Irregular heartbeat
A nervous breakdown can be identified through several physical symptoms, but an irregular heartbeat tends to be the most common. During a nervous breakdown, you may feel like your heart is pounding out of your chest, making it hard to breathe. This can exacerbate the problem and make it difficult for you to calm yourself down.
2. Tension headaches
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Stress and anxiety can be the sources of intense headaches. They can manifest themselves physically, and our desire to keep everything in causes our bodies to tense up.
Eventually, this tension moves to the head and causes pain. If you feel yourself slouching or not walking upright, try to correct your posture and give your neck muscles a break.
3. Irregular sleep
When you're stressed out, it can be difficult to get a decent night's rest. Not getting enough sleep can have serious consequences for your health. According to neuroscientist Matthew Walker who directs the sleep and neuroimaging lab at UC Berkeley, "The shorter you sleep, the shorter your life." The World Health Organization and Walker both recommend about eight hours a night as a good baseline, and Walker says he, insists on a "strict eight hours" himself.
Walker argues that routinely getting only six or seven hours of shut-eye per night can severely damage your health and emotional stability, and make it harder for your body to combat viruses like the common cold. "A single 4- or 5-hour night of sleep could lower your body’s natural killer" cell count by around 70%," Walker explained.
Sometimes, intense stress can cause you to oversleep. You might wake up feeling like you didn't sleep well or want to stay in bed all day. Insomnia can keep you awake for hours, wake you up several times throughout the night, or wake you up too early.
4. Upset stomach
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Stress, nervousness, and anxiety can be the root of chronic stomach pains. Your digestive system is directly linked to your mental health, so when it's not working, it's most likely because your brain is having trouble working too.
Irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS, is triggered by the immune system's response to excess stress levels.
5. Inability to concentrate
Another sign of a nervous breakdown is the inability to concentrate. Your mind has been focused on too many things for too long, and now it's impossible to concentrate on one particular task.
Stress has the power to increase storage space within the brain and help you concentrate, but chronic stress has the power to do the opposite. In severe cases, stress can start destroying the brain's ability to hold memory.
6. Anxiety
Anxiety is caused by fear, usually intense and chronic. Anxiety makes it almost impossible to see past the current moment due to a feeling or sense of paralysis.
Phobias are commonly associated with anxiety because the fear itself causes people to stress out. Prescription medication for anxiety is not unheard of, but it's always better to try some natural remedies like yoga or exercise before going to such lengths.
Dr. Tarra Bates-Duford, a psychologist and an expert with the American Psychotherapy Association, explains how the signs of anxiety that lead to a nervous breakdown "can vary and may look different from person to person." Concerning treatment, depending on any health conditions, she recommends exploring alternative treatments like regular yoga or exercise and getting enough sleep.
"Nervous breakdowns are most likely to occur when an individual is experiencing intense stress, there are significant life changes that the individual has been unable to adjust, challenges that have not been negotiated, or unusually high demands that have become emotionally and physically taxing for the individual," Bates-Duford explained.
Exercise is one of the best things you can do for your physical and mental health, and recent research supports this, indicating that exercise can improve your mood, focus, attention, and even your memory.
If you or somebody that you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, there is a way to get help. Call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) or text "HELLO" to 741741 to be connected with the Crisis Text Line.
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