In physical/physiological terms, what causes a sensation of tightness in the chest when stressed? Is there any benefit to it? Which bodyparts are tensing up?
IIRC. the body parts that are tensing up are the blood vessels in your body constricting. This drives your blood pressure up and reduces blood flow to your heart. It’s the reduced blood flow that starves your heart of oxygen, causing chest tightness. If you hyperventilate during stress or severe anxiety this can further reduce the oxygen to your heart, making the sensation worse.
The constricting blood vessels can also cause your esophagus to spasm a bit, so the unpleasant sensation can be caused either by your heart or by your esophagus.
Either that, or you’re tensing your muscles in response to stress (this can lead to things like a stiff neck, too) and doing it so much you’re making the muscles around your chest sore.
Or some of column A and some of column B
Because, honestly ECG, what you’re describing sounds like heart disease and angina. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but I’m not sure that’s always what’s happening during a stress response.
It feels like muscles are tense/contracted. Or maybe the lungs? Diaphragm? When I breathe fully, there is some discomfort/pain. I’m a physically fit 36-year-old man so no heart issues.
When I breathe in as much as possible, hold it and exhale, it feels like the tension slightly decreases.
with no known heart issues. One wouldn’t expect a ‘healthy’ runner to keel over near the finish line or a HS athlete to go down on the court/field but those happen often enough that it’s not totally shocking. Unfortunately, it’s usually the autopsy that finds some previously unknown heart condition. Talk to your doctor.
Are you talking physical stress, while working out, or just life’s stresses; the job, family, etc.?
Sorry, this is incorrect. A healthy heart will not be deprived significantly of oxygen by non-physical stress/anxiety alone. Increase in BP should not cause symptomatic myocardial ischemia for even most cardiac patients. And hyperventilation increases oxygen saturation in the blood; loss of consciousness is due to carbon dioxide washout.
Chest pains of a non-cardiac nature are myriad and complex, often involving the muscles and cartilage of the chest wall, the lining of the lung, and various visceral sensory nerves. Most common causes include costochondritis and lower rib pain syndromes. Esophageal reflux and spasm are frequent also. These can all be worsened by anxiety.
I’m not sure how common that is but you seem to be assuming this is a universal experience and I don’t think it is.
I was a physically fit 59-year-old man with no heart issues and excellent performance on a stress test, and then a physically fit 62-year-old man, right up until I was in the emergency room having a stent implanted. If you commonly have chest tightness when stressed then you might mention it to your doctor.
I have a friend who had a heart attack at the age of 32. He was literally the last person you would expect to have a heart attack: vegetarian, worked out regularly, not the least bit overweight. Turned out he had a long-standing heart problem that no one had detected until then.
He’s fine now, but it turned out he had been having chest pains after exercising for years. He assumed that was normal (“no pain, no gain,” right?), and that everyone had a similar experience, so he never mentioned it to anyone.
So I join in the suggestions to talk to a doctor about this.
Exercise decreases the sensation of tightness for me.
I’ll an eye out for burnt toasts, however.
How do you relax the chest wall, lung lining and viscera? With muscles knots on the surface, you can put pressure on them to break them up but the chest wall, lungs and viscera are a bit hard to get to.
If it’s pertinent, the last time I check, my blood stats were about 60/105 at 65bpm, taken in the morning. (yes, you’re not my doctor, purely for entertainment purposes, not valid where void)
Yoga would probably do it. Or any core strength workout. Exercise the muscles and they will relax after working.
Thanks.
Plank, hip thrust, anything else? Just contracting abs for 30 seconds then releasing?
I also experience a tenseness in my chest when I am stressed or have anxiety - not physically stressed but life stress/anxiety. My sister and one of my friends does also. So I don’t think it’s an odd thing.
Maybe describing it as a tenseness is incorrect. More of a tingling maybe.
A constriction is more how I would describe the stress reaction, along with pain.
What you’re describing doesn’t sound similar, although if you associate it with anxiety then I would pay attention to that. Have you tried any of the stress reduction techniques? You could start with a few simple breathing exercises and see if that helped. I find inhale for a count of 4, hold for a count of 2, and then exhale for a count of 6 works well for me.
It’s common enough that it’s a trope in fiction/literature:
… so I immediately recognised the sensation when it happened to me. I was only in mental danger. Stressed out by a relationship breakup.
Yeah, I meditate, exercise, do tai chi, use non-addicting pharmacological methods.
I’m asking about the physiology because I wonder if it’s mediated by tense muscles and if so, if it would be possible to find some physical way of relaxing them.
Psychological stress and physiological tension don’t have one way causality; The psychological aspect can increase the physiological aspect but the physiological aspect also seems to be able to increase psychological stress.
The muscles around my sternum seem to have knots in them when I press on them, similar to muscles knots when one exercises.
Not a doc, not your doc, etc., etc.
For background, my heart has been checked out good (EKG, calcium score, nuclear stress test, ultrasound) but when I go running, I have to take a deep breath, hold it, then bend at the waist to sort of “stretch out” my diaphragm/lungs before I start. Otherwise it feels like I’m not getting a full breath.
Not trying to diagnose or tell you not to get checked out, (and a cardio visit seems like it would be a good thing, if just for peace of mind) but that’s what I have to do to feel “right.” YM(of course)MV.
I have this problem, to the point of stabbing pain several times an hour for a period of months a while back. I had EKGs and chest X-rays, but all anyone could tell me was “It’s stress.” And I suppose they’re right. But even when I’m not stressed, I still get the physical pain, just not quite as bad.
Really wish there was a physical cause I could point to, but, well… here’s hoping things work out for both of us!
Thanks. I tried that and it definitely feels like it’s stretching something.
Two months ago I went to the cardiologist with exactly this complaint: chest tightness on brisk walking exceeding 15 minutes. My doc was alarmed and immediately ordered a nuclear stress test. It gave an angina index of 2. He sent me to the hospital for catheterization. As the surgical team threaded the catheter into my heart, they discovered all major vessels were good, but a minor one was 85% occluded. They decided against stenting and I went home. Moral of the story: chest tightness on moderate exercise is NOT normal. (10 years ago, I could walk briskly for hours with not a moment’s discomfort.) You MUST get evaluated for vascular disease.
I don’t get chest tightness on moderate exercise. I get chest tightness as a default or as a result or psychological factors.