Can physical symptoms of anxiety and depression be relieved?

In most cases, after anxiety and depression receive standardized intervention and the mood is gradually relieved, the corresponding physical symptoms will subside. Only a very small number of patients with a long course of illness and slight organic damage may still have some slight discomfort and require subsequent symptomatic treatment.

Two years ago, I met a girl who just started working as an Internet operator. She always felt that her stomach was blocked for more than half a year, and she couldn't eat. Sometimes she would have inexplicable diarrhea. The gastroenteroscopy and colonoscopy were all normal. She took probiotics for more than half a month, but she didn't see any improvement. Later, she was transferred to a psychology department. She was diagnosed with moderate depression and anxiety. She took antidepressants for two months and received cognitive behavioral intervention once a week. In the first two weeks after her mood improved, her gastric congestion became significantly less severe. When she was reviewed in the third month, she did not even experience the stiff neck pain that she had suffered every day.

However, many clinicians will mention another situation. If you have been carrying these emotional problems for three to five years or even longer without intervention, long-term autonomic nervous system dysfunction repeatedly stimulates the body's organs, which may really lead to some small organic problems, such as chronic gastritis caused by year-round emotional stress and chronic tension headaches caused by long-term muscle tightness. Even if your mood is completely stable, these problems may pop up from time to time, and it will take a period of symptomatic treatment before they can be completely cured.

To put it bluntly, it's like carrying a heavy object weighing more than ten kilograms every day. The soreness in your shoulders and back pain at the beginning are all functional problems caused by fatigue. You can relieve it by throwing away the heavy object and resting for two days. However, if you have carried the heavy object for several years, your shoulders have developed calluses, and even chronic inflammation has developed around your shoulder. Even if you throw away the heavy object, you have to apply plasters and undergo rehabilitation to fully feel comfortable.

Among the dozens of cases I have come into contact with, less than one-tenth of them actually have residual physical symptoms. Basically, they have delayed going to a doctor for more than four or five years. There is really no need to worry about this in advance. If you already have unexplained headaches, chest tightness, and gastrointestinal discomfort, and at the same time always feel that you are in a bad mood and can’t get motivated, go to a specialist for evaluation and intervention as soon as possible, and everything will basically be fine with your mood.