Anxiety is a mental health concern, but it can impact every part of your body. When you experience overwhelming feelings of worry and concern, it can cause physical symptoms, including sweating and muscle tension. It’s also common to feel numbness.

Numbness from anxiety can be felt all throughout your body, from your face and tongue to your hands and feet. But how long does it last? The answer: It depends.

Many people experience it for a few minutes, usually lasting up to 30 minutes. In some severe cases, anxiety numbness can last multiple hours.

Read on to learn about the factors that can influence how long anxiety numbness can last. We’ll also discuss potential triggers for numbness.

Factors that play a role in how long you may feel numbness from anxiety

While the duration of numbness from anxiety can vary from a few minutes to a few hours, here are some factors that can impact how long you may feeling it:

• Severity — Everyone feels anxious at some point in their lives, but not everyone has anxiety. If you have severe anxiety symptoms or you’ve been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, numbness may take a bit more than a few moments to go away.
• Frequency — If you have severe anxiety, you probably know what symptoms come along with it. If you have experienced numbness from anxiety on a regular basis, the numbness will likely last longer than if it’s a one-off symptom.
• Tolerance for stress — We all react to stress differently. For many people, the effect of stress can be difficult to manage. That’s when anxiety occurs, and the numbness that can come along with it. If you’re able to tolerate stress effectively and manage the emotions that come along with it, it’s likely that the numbness won’t last for an extended period of time.
• Coping mechanisms — Similar to the previous point, how you’re able to cope with the emotional, psychological and physical effects of your anxiety plays a role in the duration of your numbness. Coping mechanisms, including breathing and visualization techniques, are effective ways to decrease the symptoms of your anxiety.

Potential triggers for numbness from anxiety

Anxiety, specifically generalized anxiety disorder, makes you feel overwhelming concern and worry, even if there isn’t a threat. That means that there isn’t always an identifiable cause for symptoms, such as numbness.

However, numbness from anxiety occurs because blood circulation is reduced and nerve sensations are impacted due to the body’s response to stress. This can occur from a variety of triggers, including:

• Hormones — When you sense a perceived threat, regardless of its validity, your body jumps into “fight-or-flight” mode, leading to anxiety symptoms. Hormones that are released in times of panic, such as adrenaline and cortisol, can impact your blood circulation and nerves. It can cause numbness, along with a tingling or “pins-and-needles” sensation.
• Hyperventilation — When you’re inhaling more than you’re exhaling, it can lead to rapid breathing, also known as hyperventilation. Anxiety is a common cause of hyperventilation, as it goes hand in hand with the body’s fight-or-flight response to a threat. Hyperventilation causes a change in blood pH leading to a decrease in calcium and potassium, which affects nerve function.

• Muscle tension — When you’re feeling anxious, it’s common for your muscles to tense up, as your body is preparing to defend itself against a potential concern, along with releasing stress hormones. Muscle tension can lead to nerve compression in certain parts of your body, leading to numbness, particularly in the jaw and neck.

How Lightfully can help you address and reduce anxiety numbness

Anxiety can feel like it takes over every cell of your body, from head to toe. For many people, that involves anxiety numbness. While it may be a temporary sensation, it can start to interfere with your overall quality of life if it’s a recurring experience. If you’re regularly experiencing anxiety numbness, talk to your health care providers about potential treatment options, such as therapy and medication. If your numbness is frequent, severe or has no clear trigger, your health care provider can carry out an assessment to rule out physiological concerns.

If you need further support for your anxiety beyond outpatient therapy sessions and medication, then our Lightfully levels of care may be what you’re looking for. Our Precision Care Model allows us to treat you as a whole person beyond your anxiety with personalized, holistic treatment plans. The framework of everything we do consists of evidence-based, clearly defined care provided by compassionate, licensed clinical experts.

Our four levels of care are Residential Treatment (RTC), Virtual Intensive Outpatient Program (vIOP), Partial Hospitalization Program and Intensive Outpatient Program.

Change is possible. When you’re ready to take the first step toward alleviating your anxiety numbness, reach out to our Admissions Concierge Team. We’ll take the next steps together, toward the fullest, brightest version of you.