Your thyroid gland releases a hormone called thyroid hormone. When your thyroid hormone is too high, you may suffer from what is known as hyperthyroidism; a condition where your thyroid produces too much of its hormone in the body.

An overactive thyroid is not always a problem. There are those with hyperthyroidism that show no symptoms, or show symptoms so minor that they never realize they have a thyroid problem. But in some cases, an overactive thyroid gland can lead to severe anxiety, possibly with panic attacks.

Understanding Your Anxiety

If you suspect you have hyperthyroid, you need to talk to your doctor. There are very easy blood tests that can tell you if you have this condition. Many people self diagnose because they are convinced their anxieties should be physical, and while hyperthyroid is not a rare condition (it affects 2% of women and 0.2% of men) it is not likely to be the cause of your anxiety.

So make sure you see your doctor first, and note that even if you have hyperthyroid, your anxiety may still have developed for reasons unrelated to your thyroid hormone.

Anxiety as a Symptom of Hyperthyroidism

If you have been diagnosed with an overactive thyroid, it is possible that it is one of the contributing factors to your anxiety. In fact, anxiety is considered one of the most likely effects of hyperthyroidism.

The thyroid hormone essentially activates the entire body. It speeds up your body's metabolism in a way that causes your entire sympathetic nervous system to be more active. That means that not only are you experiencing anxiety, you are also experiencing:

• Nervous tremors/shaking
• Sleeplessness
• Heart palpitations/racing heart
• Sweating
• Irritability

If these look like anxiety symptoms, that is because they are. That's one of the reasons that it is hard to tell the difference between anxiety produced by an overactive thyroid and anxiety that is caused by something else. The two share many of the exact same symptoms, making it very difficult to distinguish them from each other clinically without a blood test.

And one of the reasons they may be difficult to distinguish is because they are both anxiety. Even if an overactive hormone is causing that anxiety, it is still anxiety nonetheless.