Talk to your doctor about all new, changing, persistent, and returning symptoms, as some medical conditions and medications can cause anxiety-like symptoms.
Additional Medical Advisory Information.
While there are many reasons for this symptom, here are the most common:
1. The stress responseAnxious behavior activates the stress response, which secretes stress hormones into the bloodstream. These hormones travel to targeted locations to bring about specific physiological, psychological, and emotional changes that prepare the body for immediate emergency action – to either fight or flee.
This survival reaction is often referred to as [1][2]:
The stress response causes many body-wide changes, including:
To name a few.
For complete information about the many body-wide changes, visit “The Stress Response” article.
The degree of the stress response is proportional to the degree of anxious behavior. For instance, the more anxious you are, the more dramatic the stress response changes.
Since stress responses push the body beyond its internal balance (equilibrium), stress responses stress the body. As such, anxiety stresses the body.
Therefore, anxiety symptoms are symptoms of stress. They are called anxiety symptoms because anxious behavior is the main source of the stress that stresses the body, causing symptoms.
Any of the above stress response changes can cause a trembling, shaking, vibrating, or tremoring feeling. Again, the more dramatic the stress response changes, the more intense the trembling feelings.
Just as too much caffeine, a stimulant, can stimulate the body and cause jitteriness and trembling, so can the stress response because it stimulates the body. Trembling, shaking, vibrating, and tremors are common sensations associated with anxiety and an active stress response [3][4][5].
Some people say they have a “case of the nerves” because they are shaking so much from being anxious, nervous, and afraid.
2. HyperstimulationWhen stress responses occur infrequently, the body can recover relatively quickly from the physiological, psychological, and emotional changes the stress response brings about.
However, when stress responses occur too frequently, such as from overly anxious behavior, the body can’t completely recover. Incomplete recovery can leave the body in a state of semi-stress-response readiness, which we call “stress-response hyperstimulation” since stress hormones are powerful stimulants.
Hyperstimulation is also often referred to as “hyperarousal,” “HPA axis dysfunction,” or “nervous system dysregulation” [6][7].
Recovery Support members can visit our “Hyperstimulation And Its Effects” article in Chapter 14 for more in-depth information about the many ways hyperstimulation can affect the body and how it can make a person feel.
Hyperstimulation can cause changes of an active stress response even though a stress response hasn’t been activated. Experiencing involuntary “trembling, shaking, vibrating, tremoring” feelings are common indications of hyperstimulation (chronic stress).
Furthermore, the body’s nervous system is responsible for sending sensory nerve impulse information from the body’s sense organs to the brain for interpretation and then for sending nerve impulse information from the brain to the body.
The nervous system accomplishes this “sending and receiving” via specialized cells called “neurons.” Neurons communicate with each other using an electrochemical process (the combination of electricity and chemistry) [8][9].
For example, if you touch a hot burner, the nerve receptors in the skin send this sensory information – electrical signals - through the nervous system network to the brain. Once the brain interprets this sensory information as “hot,” the brain sends nerve impulse information back through the nervous system to the muscles that control the arm and hand to pull the hand away from the hot burner [10].
This “back-and-forth” interaction happens quickly – nerve impulse information can travel as fast as 268 miles per hour [11]. This “quick reaction” can prevent the skin from being burned.
This system of nervous system communication and reaction performs normally when the body and nervous system are healthy. However, problems with this interaction can occur when the body and nervous system become hyperstimulated [12][13].
Hyperstimulation can cause all kinds of erratic nervous system behavior, such as muscle twitching, spasms, and tension, as well as a “trembling” feeling anywhere on or in the body, including parts of the body or the entire body.
Moreover, because hyperstimulation can cause an increase in the electrical activity in parts of the brain, the nervous system can behave even more erratically [14].
The above factors can cause many unusual sensations and symptoms, including a “trembling, shaking, vibrating, and tremoring” feeling.
For instance, as mentioned, muscle movements are controlled by nerve impulses. A muscle contracts (tightens) when it receives a nerve impulse and releases (relaxes) when the nerve impulse stops.
The body is made up of muscles that respond to involuntary nerve impulses (where the body decides when and how to use them) and voluntary nerve impulses (where we decide when and how to use them).
The body is also made up of three kinds of muscles:
When the body’s nervous system and muscle tensions are normal, the combination of nerve impulses and muscle responses causes them to function normally. However, hyperstimulation can affect the nervous system's functions, affecting voluntary and involuntary muscle movements.
For example, hyperstimulation can cause muscles to involuntarily pulse, throb, twitch, spasm, or contract as the affected nervous system sends erratic nerve impulses to the body’s muscles. These erratic nerve impulses can be sent to any of the body’s skeletal muscles, at any time, and to any degree. A variety of contractions from slight (pulsing/tremor/vibrate) to dramatic (twitching or painful spasms) and from rhythmic to sporadic can occur.
As long as the body is hyperstimulated, even to a mild degree, it can experience symptoms, including trembling, shaking, vibrating, and tremors. Chronic symptoms generally mean the body is chronically stressed (hyperstimulated).
3. Hyperstimulation can make the nervous system and senses super sensitive.Stress responses are supposed to put the nervous system on high alert, making it super-sensitive and reactive to stimuli. As the degree of hyperstimulation increases, so does the nervous system’s sensitivity and reactivity. That’s why people who are overly stressed can become “jumpy” like an antsy cat.
When the body becomes hyperstimulated (chronically stressed), it can make you more sensitive to the movements in your environment, such as you might be able to more readily feel the vibrations coming from passing traffic, a spinning wash machine or dryer, a moving elevator in a building, a nearby train, or someone walking on the floor or moving on a bed, etc.
As long as the body is hyperstimulated, it can be more receptive to environmental movements that can make it seem like your body is trembling, shaking, vibrating, or tremoring.
4. Sleep deprivationSleep deprivation adversely affects the body’s nervous system and causes an increase in the level of circulating cortisol, a powerful stress hormone, to compensate for feeling tired [15][16]. Many people who are sleep-deprived experience trembling until their sleep debt is caught up.
The combination of hyperstimulation and sleep deprivation is a common cause of reoccurring and persistent trembling, shaking, vibrating, and tremoring symptoms.
5. Other FactorsOther factors can create stress and cause anxiety-like symptoms, as well as aggravate existing anxiety symptoms, including:
Select the relevant link for more information.
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