Does Prednisone Increase Anxiety?

***I’m pooped, too much anxiety today!”***

If you have a cold and are prescribed Prednisone, does it cause extra anxiety? I want to say…yes! At the present time, I’m taking it and my anxiety increased seven fold. I couldn’t figure out why my anxiety doubled, until I saw ‘Prednisone and anxiety’ in the list of keyword phrases in Google. As a result, I decided to do some investigating. Furthermore, I’ve listed some of the side effects I was getting from Prednisone and I’ll talk about how it compounded my anxiety.

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” — George Bernard Shaw

Shaky Hands Anxiety

Uncontrollable shaking or trembling of the hands or other parts of the body can be a symptom of anxiety. Generally, tremors caused by anxiety aren’t dangerous, but they can be uncomfortable. When your body is under stress, it goes into fight-or-flight mode, causing stress hormones to flood your body and speed up your heart, blood pressure and breathing. Furthermore, this can cause your muscles to tense which can lead to a trembling sensation or shaking.

The difference between someone who has healthy levels of anxiety and a person who has high levels of anxiety is the vulnerability to the fight-or-flight response. Although, some of us see the world the way our early ancestors saw it; full of danger. Therefore, when we can no longer control that response, and when anxiety starts to have a large impact on our lives, we need to work a little harder than others at keeping ourselves calm.

Furthermore, when we perceive a threat, our sympathetic nervous system is activated, and this triggers something called an “acute stress response.” Because our nervous system affects our entire body, we feel this stress in physical ways.

I couldn’t figure out what to do with my ever shaking hands. However, it’s really weird though, once I figured out what was causing the extra shaky hands, the symptoms lessoned. Don’t know why, don’t care to know why. Just glad that it happened, because this happened over 4-5 days. I almost called my psychiatrist. But, now, problem solved!

“For every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Anxiety Lightheaded

For some people, their anxiety and dizziness can intensify to the point that they experience panic attacks. Overall, anxiety, dizziness and lightheadedness symptoms will differ in intensity from week to week. Given that, on some days the feeling may be especially intense, and on others it may feel much more bearable.

Regardless, you may have found that your anxiety and dizziness increase when you’re in scenarios that you fear such as in crowds or on public transport. Dizziness, when related to anxiety, will typically be accompanied by a sense of lightheadedness or a feeling that you might faint.

Due to the Prednisone, I became very lightheaded. Equally, I experience lightheadedness from the anxiety (or panic attacks), but the medicine increased my lightheadedness. A couple of times, I thought I was going to pass out (it was that bad). The world started to become very dark!

“Be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.” — Judy Garland

Hyperventilation Anxiety

Generally, hyperventilation is often caused by anxiety. On the other hand, hyperventilation itself can also cause or worsen existing anxiety. This means that if you can stop hyperventilating, you can potentially reduce the severity of your panic attacks and perhaps prevent them altogether.

Although, most people don’t realize they’re hyperventilating until the process has already started, so it may be difficult to fully control all anxiety attacks and prevent all instances of hyperventilation. Furthermore, the more you think about your breathing, the more at risk you are for hyperventilation because your mind may interfere with your automatically programmed breathing rhythms.

Also, hyperventilating and anxiety go hand in hand. I had a few more bouts of hyperventilating than usual from being on the Prednisone. Though I sound like I’m downing this medicine, I’m not trying to. My doctor told me to stop taking it if I had any extra of these side effects. However, I made it through unscathed. And I am feeling much better.

“I realized that I don’t have to be perfect. All I have to do is show up and enjoy the messy, imperfect, and beautiful journey of my life.” — Kerry Washington

Procrastination and Anxiety

In short, anxiety-related procrastination is a vicious cycle. Although a task may make people feel anxious, putting it off can make them feel more anxious and create more dread around the task in the long run. Research also shows that procrastinators get worse sleep and feel tired in the daytime, worsening the cycle of procrastination and amplifying anxiety symptoms. In similar fashion, anxiety can disguise itself behind various other emotions. Subsequently, you may feel angry and blame other people for not completing a particular task and resent having to do the job in the first place.

Once I figured out it was the Prednisone that was causing my extra anxiety, I was procrastinating whether to continue to take it. On the other hand, I figured I might as well since I was almost finished with it.

“By being yourself you put something wonderful in the world that was not there before.” — Edwin Elliot

Too Anxious to Sleep

On the other hand, many people with anxiety disorders have the can’t sleep anxiety. That’s a problem. Too little sleep affects mood, contributing to irritability and sometimes depression. On the whole, vital functions occur during different stages of sleep that leave you feeling rested and energized or help you learn and forge memories.

However, the relationship between sleep and anxiety goes both ways. Poor sleep can also increase your risk of developing a mental health condition. When you do not have regular, restful sleep, you are more likely to feel stressed and anxious.

Even though I normally have trouble sleeping because of the anxiety, it was worse with the Prednisone. That is to say, I was hardly sleeping because of the extra tremors I was experiencing. Again, I’m not trying to put down this med, but it can cause some real issues with your anxiety (not like you don’t already have that).

“Love yourself first and everything else falls into place.” — Lucille Ball

Conclusion

To conclude, I kept thinking to myself, why is my anxiety so high when before I had mild anxiety. Also, nothing in my environment had changed to cause this? Then, like I said earlier, I saw ‘Prednisone and anxiety in Google key phrases and the puzzle began to be put together. Even so, once I put two and two together, I was almost finished with taking the medicine. But if I ever take it again, I’ll be more prepared in expecting more of the shaky hands, lightheadedness, and hyperventilation.

Therefore, if you ever take Prednisone and you suffer from anxiety, it could cause increased anxiousness. The research I did for this post on Google helped me understand that you have to be extra cautious when taking a combination of meds that aren’t related to one another (or even related).

Furthermore, I hope I helped you out a little with the potential complications of this med and I hope to talk to you soon. Keep Googling…

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