08.06.24
8 Surprising Reasons You’re Feeling Extra Anxious Today
It's possible that second cold brew betrayed you.
Have you ever been chilling—just minding your own business—when, out of nowhere, anxiety enters the chat? Despite there being no discernable stressor around, it hits you with a bang of sudden panic or creeps up with a sense of dread, sweaty palms, or any number of other fun anxiety symptoms that decide to come along for the ride this time.
If you’re anything like me, you might start going through the checklist of common culprits: Is there a legit threat around? Something I forgot to be anxious about? A sense memory from that time I puked in front of everyone in fifth-grade gym class? And when you come up blank, you’re left wondering: OK, then why the heck am I freaking out?!
The good news: You’re not alone. The less-good news: There are so many possible anxiety triggers that can set you off at any given time. We checked in with some experts to find out why you might be anxious at this (or any other) moment.
What does it mean to “trigger” anxiety, anyway?
Well, first, it’s certainly possible that nothing in particular kicked off your anxiety response—disproportionate or seemingly baseless anxiety is often seen as the hallmark of certain anxiety disorders like general anxiety, social anxiety, or panic disorder. But, most of the time, anxiety pops up or worsens thanks to a specific trigger—some of which you might not even notice or think to connect to anxiety.
“Sometimes we experience something stressful and logically feel real anxiety as a result,” says Ellen Vora, MD, board-certified psychiatrist and author of The Anatomy of Anxiety. Think of common anxiety inducers like speaking in front of a large crowd, taking an important exam, or watching a scary movie. Then there are the less tangible but just as triggering culprits: our own thoughts! These usually come in the shape of cognitive distortions like catastrophizing, ruminating, and jumping to negative conclusions. No surprise if you get anxious when that happens, right?
Other times we get what Dr. Vora calls “false anxiety”—not because it’s any less valid, but because it’s not kicked off by anything conventionally anxiety-inducing. We’ll get into a ton of examples of this in a bit, but basically your body and brain are interpreting your current situation as something to get really freaking anxious about. Dr. Vora emphasizes that being aware of these less common triggers is crucial for tackling anxiety effectively, whether you have an anxiety condition or need help managing anxiety when it occasionally pops up.
Here are some of those lesser-known anxiety triggers to keep an eye out for.
1. You downed too much caffeine.
OK, if you’re an avid caffeine consumer who also struggles with anxiety, you probably know on some level that the two aren’t exactly a match made in heaven. Consider how caffeine impacts your body: It stimulates your central nervous system, increases your heart rate, and can make you feel jittery and on edge. “When we're over-caffeinated, the effects feel synonymous with what we call anxiety,” Dr. Vora explains. And, unfortunately, your mind isn’t always great at distinguishing between the two. Sometimes it feels those cold-brew flutters and just assumes the worst.
As for how much caffeine is too much? The FDA cites 400 milligrams (or roughly four cups of coffee) a day as generally safe, but your personal line between appropriately caffeinated and just plain anxious might be below or above that. So it helps to pay attention to how you feel after slurping coffee, tea, soda, or the caffeine vehicle of your choice.
“Taking moments to pause and notice, ‘I’m feeling extra restless and on edge—did I have too much caffeine today?’ is a really important piece of monitoring how caffeine affects you,” says Natasha Reynolds, MDiv, a psychotherapist with Bloom Psychology. “Maybe your morning cup is just fine but your afternoon pick-me-up pushes you over the edge.”
2. You didn’t get enough sleep last night.
You might be used to anxiety and racing thoughts wrecking your sleep, but did you know it can be a two-way street? Sleep helps us function in a zillion different ways—recouping the mental resources we need to regulate our emotions, maintain cognitive function, and support our overall brain health, to name a few. So it’s no surprise that not getting enough sleep can be a recipe for increased anxiety throughout the day.
“We have a limited reservoir of mental energy that gets depleted during the day and then it gets replenished at night while we sleep,” Dr. Vora says. “So if we're not getting adequate sleep, we wake up and set out into the day with a limited capacity for executive function.” Meaning we might be way more susceptible to minor stressors that wouldn’t normally get under our skin.
3. Your blood sugar is low.
Whether you skipped a meal or have a condition associated with hypoglycemia, low blood sugar can lead to symptoms that mimic anxiety, such as shaking, sweating, and irritability. Like a lot of body oddities, that’s by design. According to Dr. Vora, this response is meant to cue us to forage for food (evolutionarily speaking). “It's a decent design—it just so happens to unfortunately feel the same as anxiety,” Dr. Vora says.
As for clues your blood sugar is to blame and not some other possible trigger? “If I have a patient who identifies with a feeling of hanger, that's a pretty good sign that they might also experience anxiety when their blood sugar crashes,” Dr. Vora says. If you’re wondering if low blood sugar might be contributing to your anxiety, Dr. Vora recommends talking to a medical professional about it—whether that’s a primary care provider you trust, a registered dietician, or a holistic psychiatrist like her.
4 You’re dehydrated.
Another way you can leave your body extra susceptible to anxiety? Not watering it enough. I know, we really are just complicated plants. But it’s true—dehydration can cause symptoms like dizziness, heart palpitations, and headaches, which can be mistaken for anxiety or make existing anxiety worse, says Dr. Vora.
“A lot of my patients will have a panic attack in a setting like the subway and think, I’m scared of crowded places or being underground,” says Dr. Vora. “In reality, they’ve been standing on a hot subway platform for way too long and aren’t properly hydrated, so their heart starts to race in order to keep pumping enough blood to their brain, and suddenly, their body is back in a stress response.” Even if you do find certain scenarios nerve-wracking, Dr. Vora says staying hydrated is another tool for keeping your body calm and preventing unnecessary anxiety.
5. You’re hungover.
Hangxiety—that overwhelming feeling of dread and worry that hits the day after drinking—can be equal parts physical and emotional. For one, drinking can screw with your sleep, dehydrate you, and mess with your blood sugar levels, so the excess anxiety from the previous three points usually applies here, too, says Dr. Vora. Plus, as we previously reported, there’s a whole booze-fueled shift in neurotransmitters to blame for those morning-after mind games.
And you might just wake up feeling extra regretful or anxious about what you might have said or done while intoxicated. “There’s often a lot of social anxiety as you reflect back on the night,” Reynolds says. “You’re feeling vulnerable, wondering, Did I do something wrong? Was I more talkative than usual? Should I be embarrassed?” It’s not hard to guess how your hungover brain would take that and run into full-on post-social scaries.
6. Your environment is overstimulating.
We all have different tolerances for sensory input, whether you get frazzled in loud, crowded, or visually chaotic environments or can’t stand specific sights, sounds, textures, smells, or tastes. “Sometimes, when there’s all this input from different places, you can fall into a state of sensory overload,” Reynolds says, noting how many people describe feeling overstimulated as similar to anxiety. The feeling often lingers too. “You might get home from a really overstimulating day at work and wonder why your heart is still racing and you can’t seem to wind down.”
You might be more sensitive to sensory triggers and the ensuing anxiety for a few reasons. Maybe your body isn’t up to the task of filtering thanks to another culprit on this list (say, lack of sleep or low blood sugar). Other conditions like ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, and PTSD have been shown to increase your sensitivity to sensory input and exacerbate anxiety too.
7. You’re scrollin’ and scrollin’ and scrollin’.
You’ve probably noticed that the tiny device in your hand can stress you out—especially when it’s serving up the latest dread-inducing headlines. But it’s not just the content that can make you anxious as you scroll.
Blue light exposure after sunset is associated with (you guessed it) poor sleep, as well as a feeling of alertness and arousal. The latter isn’t always a bad thing, but as with other things on the list, our body is sometimes quick to translate the sensation as anxiety, Dr. Vora says. So, while it might feel like a harmless habit, scrolling through social media late at night can set off a chain reaction that heightens physical symptoms of anxiety and disrupts your overall well-being.
8. You’ve picked up on some other unconscious cue.
When you hear the word “trigger,” you might think of highly specific and personal things that are hard to sum up on a list like this—like smells that take you back to a time you feared for your safety, someone’s uncanny demeanor that flips your fight-or-flight switch, or some other deep sense memory that’s associated with something not great.
In the moment, you’re not always aware of what’s vaulted you back to a stress-inducing time in the past—but you might recognize, “Hey, I’ve felt this way before,” says Reynolds. “No matter how our past traumas get triggered, it leaves us vulnerable to anxiety,” Reynolds says. Even if you can’t stop the wave of anxiety that follows, awareness still helps, she says. Being mindful of your sensitivities can, at the very least, keep you from getting caught off guard when the anxiety hits.
The bottom line:
Anxious feelings don’t always show up with a clear and obvious explanation. Sometimes the cause is more subtle or personal because, well, bodies are weird. So if you notice your anxiety revving up unexpectedly, do a little investigating. Once you know what sets your anxiety off, Reynolds says, you can learn how to avoid it.
That’s not to say the lesson here is to avoid all the triggers. “Identifying the seemingly benign aspects of our modern lives that create anxiety allows us to make informed choices,” Dr. Vora says. Maybe you skip that second cold brew or pay more attention to your sleep and alcohol intake if these things tend to set an anxious spiral into motion. “There are no rules about what we do with this information, but we deserve to know how they're impacting our anxiety levels.”
Wondermind does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Any information published on this website or by this brand is not intended as a replacement for medical advice. Always consult a qualified health or mental health professional with any questions or concerns about your mental health.
