Is it normal to be jumpy

Physical symptoms can include: a pounding heartbeat breathing faster palpitations an irregular heartbeat feeling sick chest pains headaches sweating loss of appetite feeling faint needing the toilet more frequently "butterflies" in your tummy Anxiety can also be a symptom of another condition, such as panic disorder when you have panic attacks or post-traumatic stress disorder , which is caused by frightening or distressing events.

Is anxiety bad for you? Help for anxiety and panic There are effective treatments available for anxiety and panic disorders, so do talk to your GP if you think you may benefit from them. Source: Health Scotland - Opens in new browser window. Last updated:. How can we improve this page? But people who have a very rapid heart rate, and may have actually a rhythm disturbance, can feel very anxious because their heart is going so fast, and can startle easily. But we can fix that.

So jumpiness? It could've come from the womb. It could be a trait that you're born with, everybody in your family's kind of jumpy. It could be the mothering style that you were raised with. It could be that your caffeine and your amphetamines are too high, so stop that already. It could be a sign of hyperthyroidism, or it could be a consequence of a traumatic episode that you're not over and might need help with.

Being hyperarousable or hyperirritable is very difficult to live with. Hard for you to live with yourself, and hard for others to live with you. It's worthwhile getting it evaluated and talking to your clinician. There may be a medical reason, but there are very good therapies such as mindfulness training to help you be the calm person you really hope to be.

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Subscribe to The Scope Radio. Related Podcasts. The startle easily symptom can come and go rarely, occur frequently, or persist indefinitely.

For example, you may startle easily once and a while and not that often, startle easily off and on, or startle easily all the time. The startle easily symptom may precede, accompany, or follow an escalation of other anxiety sensations and symptoms, or occur by itself. The startle easily symptom can range in intensity from slight, to moderate, to severe. The startle easily symptom can often seem more disconcerting when undistracted, trying to rest, when relaxing, or when going to or waking up from sleep.

Behaving anxiously activates the stress response. The stress response immediately causes specific physiological, psychological, and emotional changes in the body that enhance the body's ability to deal with a threat - to either fight with or flee from it - which is the reason the stress response is often referred to as the fight or flight response. A major part of the stress response changes include heightening our senses and stimulating the nervous system.

This emergency readiness can cause a startle easily reaction. When stress responses occur infrequently, the body can recover relatively quickly from the physiological, psychological, and emotional changes the stress response brings about. When stress responses occur too frequently, however, the body doesn't complete its recovery.

Incomplete recovery can result in the body remaining in a state of semi emergency response readiness, which we call " stress-response hyperstimulation " since stress hormones are stimulants. A body that becomes hyperstimulated can exhibit super sensitive senses and hyper reactivity, which can cause a person to startle easily, be jumpy, and jittery.

Since the nervous system is THE system that is responsible for sending and receiving information including sensory information, when the nervous system becomes hyperstimulated, it can become highly sensitive and reactive to stimulus, including sounds, movements, sensations, and smells.

Having a hyper reactive nervous system is a common consequence of stress-response hyperstimulation. But an indication of persistently elevated stress, and often, anxiety. When this startle easily symptom is caused by apprehensive behavior and the accompanying stress response changes, calming yourself down will bring an end to the stress response and its changes.

As your body recovers from the active stress response, the startle easily symptom should subside and you should return to your normal self.

Keep in mind that it can take up to 20 minutes or more for the body to recover from a major stress response. When the startle easily symptom is caused by persistent stress, such as that from behaving overly apprehensively, it may take a lot more time for the body to recover and to the point where the startle easily symptom is eliminated.

You can speed up the recovery process by reducing your stress, practicing relaxed breathing, increasing your rest and relaxation, and not worrying about the startle easily feeling. We list a number of other natural and practical strategies in Chapter 4 in the Recovery Support area of our website. For a more detailed explanation about all anxiety symptoms, including this startle easily symptom, why symptoms can persist long after the stress response has ended, common barriers to recovery and symptom elimination, and more recovery strategies and tips, we have many chapters that address this information in the Recovery Support area of our website.

Return to our anxiety disorders signs and symptoms page. Any techniques that work? Mine has always been over the top, and getting much worse. The psychosomatic mouse incidents alone might kill me.

Georgette Hamaty told me she was so startled by a car crash scene in a movie, she jumped out of her seat and knocked her iced tea out of the cup holder, spilling it all over her husband. Eugene Sonn spoke of his endless efforts not to startle his wife, Jess Walcott.

He knocks on the door, or the door frame if the door is open, before entering a room. Like, I have children, and there will be loud noises in my house. My phone will ring, and coworkers will speak to me. I wanted to understand this reaction better and find out if there was anything I could do about it. I reached out to Seth Norrholm , who startles people for a living — at least some of the time.

For example, surprising them with a sudden loud noise to get their baseline startle response, and then repeating that same experiment in the dark, where people feel more on edge.

That sounded like a place straight out of a nightmare to me, and I wondered if people ever came back to his lab after the first visit. A loud bang, a box falling right behind you — these can set off a cascade through your autonomic nervous system, initiating a stress response.

Signals from the brain get to the pituitary gland, which leads to the release of cortisol, the human stress hormone. And that cortisol will course through your bloodstream to prepare you for a threatening situation.

It could also affect your heart rate or breathing. So you remember as a kid when a balloon popped, you had a pretty robust response. And now as an adult, when boxes fall or doors slam, you notice you have a robust response as well.