Last Updated on December 16, 2021 by

Can anxiety cause blurred vision the blurred vision can often arise in people who suffer from anxiety. Usually this symptom is interpreted with anguish and fear by not knowing if it is a manifestation of the anxiety that is being suffered or if it is a different disease.

Likewise, it often causes some stress not knowing if the worsening of vision is a momentary situation and will disappear at the same time as the anxiety or if it will last and will never recovers the quality of anterior vision.

Can anxiety cause blurred vision

In this article I will explain the relationship between blurred vision and anxiety, and we will dispel doubts about whether this symptom is part of the manifestations of anxiety.

How can blurry vision cause anxiety?

The anxiety makes such a direct effect on the functioning of our bodies and our minds that can cause a number of physical symptoms, including blurred vision is.

There is no conclusive data today on how many people with anxiety suffer from blurred vision.

However, it seems to be a symptom that often occurs among those people who suffer from high levels of anxiety.

Blurred vision is a sign of loss of visual acuity that can be caused by different diseases such as eye injuries, diabetes, glaucoma, cataracts, myopia, etc.

However, anxiety, through hormonal alterations, changes in blood sugar levels, increases in blood circulation and eye strain that causes, can also cause the typical symptoms of blurred vision.

In this way, people with elevated levels of anxiety may find it more difficult to focus on their vision, to visualize objects at a long distance or to see things with the clarity that they saw before.

Likewise, anxiety can cause photophobia, a feeling of irritability to intense light stimuli, as well as eye pain due to the direct effect of the increased pressure of that area of ​​the body.

Thus, although blurred vision is often not included as one of the typical symptoms of anxiety, elevated levels of stress can lead to this type of disturbance.

Now, if I have blurred vision due to my anxiety state, will it disappear when my nervousness lessens or will it persist forever?

How should blurred vision be treated by anxiety?

First of all it should be noted that blurred vision caused by anxiety will only remain as long as you experience high levels of stress.

So, when you stop anxiety, your vision will be restored and you will no longer see in a blur.

However, secondly, if you suffer from blurred vision of anxiety, it will not disappear until you manage to control and reduce your anxious state, and if it increases, your vision will also worsen.

So, in these cases, blurred vision and anxiety go hand in hand, and one will not disappear without the other.

This shows that the first therapeutic intervention to remedy this situation is to perform those treatments that allow you to eliminate anxiety.

Depending on the type of anxiety you suffer the treatments are very diverse, however, anxiety disorders are usually resolved effectively through combination of medications and psychotherapy.

However, it is clear that as long as you do not manage to fight your anxiety completely, blurred vision will be a more annoying symptom that will prevent you from living normally.

In this way, you can also perform a series of actions that, to a certain extent, can help you improve your vision. These are:

• Do not spend a lot of time watching TV, computer, mobile, etc.
• Perform good hydration to avoid eye pain.
• Keep your eyes closed for 5 minutes while applying a gentle massage with your finger in circular movements.
• Apply cold water to your eyes recurrently.
• Use moisturizing eye drops when your eyes are dry.

What exactly is anxiety?

Anxiety is part of the human condition and serves to confront situations of danger or risk.

In this way, we can understand anxiety as a mechanism of activation of our mind that, in certain situations, begins to take actions to activate the response of our body.

For example, if at night we walk alone in the forest and suddenly we hear a threatening noise, our mind will be activated immediately so we can respond quickly and effectively.

This activation is vital because, if perceived fear poses a real threat, anxiety will enable us to make a behavioral response that could save our lives.

However, as we have been saying, this activation is not only performed by our mind, since it is in charge of preparing our whole body for action.

So, at this moment, our mind cancels the digestive processes or the sexual libido so as not to waste energy in aspects that are not relevant to the emerging situation.

Our mind also takes care of tensing our muscles so that they can respond properly if they require rapid movements, increases the sweating of our body and increases our body temperature to stimulate our body.

This allows us to clarify two fundamental aspects:

1. Anxiety, biologically speaking, has a normal functionality and necessary for the survival of the species, since it is the way that humans have to respond to threats.
2. Anxiety originates in our minds but does not spread quickly through our body, involving the whole organism.

Thus, we see that anxiety is a normal response that performs activation and a global modification of the functioning of our body, which is also considered adequate.

However, anxiety is not always an adaptive way of responding to certain circumstances because many people suffer from stress, nervousness or anxiety.

So how can we identify when anxiety is an adequate response and when it is an inadequate response and / or psychological alteration?

Well, anxiety can be categorized as pathological when the following conditions are met:

1. The anxiety experienced is of an excessive intensity.
2. Anxiety appears without there being any stimulus or motive that prompts its manifestation.
3. A high latency of recovery is experienced, that is, the individual suffering from anxiety is unable or has much difficulty recovering
4. His previous state (his calm state) and remains with anxious symptoms.
5. Anxiety occurs in a habitual way and affects the daily functioning of the person who suffers it.

In this way, we see how “normal” anxiety has duration and different qualities to pathological anxiety.

Generally, normal anxiety will be shorter in response to a particular stimulus and will disappear when the threat is no longer present; however, pathological anxiety will be the opposite.

Thus, the activation of both the brain and the body performing the one and the other will also be different, so the symptoms experienced will not be the same either.

What happens in our body when we are anxious?

As we have explained, anxiety always appears with a very clear objective: to activate both our body and our minds so that they are alert and able to respond quickly and effectively to threats.

This anxiety function is valid for both adaptive anxieties, when it appears before a real threatening stimulus, and for pathological anxiety, when it appears without there being any stimulus that motivates its presentation.

In this way, before any state of anxiety, our body undergoes a series of changes in its functioning.

More specifically, our mind is in charge of releasing a greater number of hormones to the body like adrenaline and noradrenalin.

These hormones are excitatory substances that increase the heart rate, dilate the breathing systems and activate the processes of immediate response of our brain.

This explains why when we release these substances in abundance, our body is overexcited, to be able to respond adequately and to be sufficiently activated.

If what we are experiencing is a “normal” anxiety, this over excitation of the body will last for a few seconds or minutes, and as soon as the threat disappears the levels of adrenaline and noradrenalin will return to normal and anxiety will disappear.

However, when in our body and mind there are very high levels of these substances for a long time, we tire more quickly,  our attention diminishes, we are unable to sleep and, of course, our state of anxiety increases.

This is because our mind is overexciting the whole body excessively for too long, so it begins to respond well to such high levels of adrenaline and noradrenalin.

So, we see that whatever type of anxiety we experience, our body undergoes a series of hormonal alterations that modify the normal functioning of the organism.

However, the main difference eradicates the duration, intensity and resilience of experienced anxiety-

That is, if we are suffering from a normal anxiety response or if we are suffering from prolonged and pathological episodes of distress.

If it is a normal response, our body will activate properly through the mechanisms we have discussed, our body will be excited for a certain period of time and after a few minutes everything will return to normal.

However, if we undergo pathological anxiety (or any anxiety disorder) the mental and bodily excitation that results from our state, will not be present only for a short period of time.

On the contrary, our activation and our sense of anxiety will endure and we will not be able to eliminate it and return to the normal state, with a much smaller activation of both our body and our mind.

Also Read: Does Paroxetine Treat For Anxiety?

This prolonged over activity over time that causes anxiety, causes our body to start not working properly because it is more activated than it should.

At the same time, this malfunction (or over-functioning) of our body, automatically translates into a series of symptoms, both psychological and physical.

What symptoms cause anxiety?

Due to the high destabilization that causes in the organism, the anxiety can originate a great number of very diverse symptoms.

In fact, there is infinity of manifestations that can be associated with anxiety states. However, they never appear all at once and one person can suffer one and others do not.

Next we will discuss those symptoms most characteristic of anxiety and group them according to whether they are psychological symptoms, physical symptoms or behavioral symptoms.

Psychological symptoms

• Excessive concern about facts and aspects of a diverse nature.
• Fear and fear about anything.
• Generalized feeling of insecurity.
• Difficulties in making decisions or taking actions with safety.
• Negative thoughts about oneself.
• Negative thoughts about our actions and our behaviors toward others.
• Excessive fear that others will realize our difficulties or limitations.
• Excessive fear of losing control or not being aware of our actions.
• Generalized difficulties to think and / or study.
• Difficulties to maintain the attention in some aspect and null capacity of concentration.
• Decreased ability to remember and make use of memory.
• Unable to be calm and relaxed.

Physical symptoms

• Generalized sweating in the body.
• Muscle tension.
• Recurrent palpitations.
• Tachycardias and feelings of increased heart rate.
• Tremors
• Discomfort and / or pain in the stomach.
• Gastric discomfort.
• Difficulties to breathe properly.
• Difficulty swallowing or swallowing.
• Difficulty eating and digesting food properly.
• Frequent headaches.
• Dizziness, nausea, or loss of balance.
• Problems focusing or viewing objects at a long distance.

Behavioral symptoms

• Avoidance of dreaded situations that cause an increase in anxiety.
• Smoking, eating or drinking in excess and impulsively.
• Permanent motor restlessness and repetitive compulsive movements.
• Inability to be still and realizing constant movements without a concrete purpose.
• Stuttering
• In some cases frequent crying.