Not sure what this is...

[MaryMac]

Hi everyone. Hope you're all doing well, I've had a great few months, my HA has all but disappeared! However, last night was a bit of a weird one for me, and I just want to know if anyone else has had this. On Wednesday I went to the gym for the first time in FOREVER. I was on the rowing machine and worked myself quite hard. I felt fine the rest of Weds, then yesterday I started getting the "pain" which doesn't bother me because I know what caused it. I felt totally great otherwise, but around 2pm I noticed that my heartrate had increased and I was having difficulty concentrating and my arms and legs felt like sort of "jelly". I wasn't too bothered but I had dinner and I felt like my appetite had gone down to zero and I had to force myself to eat. I went to bed and didn't sleep because I was too hot, my heart was still racing, my limbs still felt weird and my stomach did a little too. I've got a phobia of vomiting and I started worrying about norovirus since a few people in my area have it. I was up til around 5am and woke up at 8.30. My limbs still have this weird "tingling" feeling and I'm too scared to eat just incase! I should point out I had a cup of coffee and 2 big cups of tea but that's not unusual.
It all sounds like classic anxiety but I'm not sure if it IS or if it's a result of going to the gym or am I actually fighting off some sort of virus?
I know it's all a bit vague but it has happened to me several times before, feeling like this even if I'm not anxious about anything...

[Jules147]

You feel like you might vomit. This is making you anxious. A dark thought has obviously popped into your head and the amygdala has set off the alarm bells before you have even had chance to form this thought into words in your head.

You have had thoughts about the norovirus going round and the following has happened:

There's this bug going and I might have exposed myself to it at the gym.

What if I've caught it?

What if I vomit as a result?

I have a phobia about vomiting....

What happens to me if I think I am going to vomit?

Thoughts such as these are in themselves enough to bring on the same kind of symptoms of anxiety that you associate with vomiting; the thought of being in the trigger situation is as powerful as the trigger itself.

The reason for this is that the relationship between your trigger (actually vomiting) and what is triggered (anxiety symtoms) is no less fallacious than the trigger of thinking about vomiting!

If you were to vomit, a natural process of evacuating food from your stomach because either it is harmful or, more likely, fight or flight response aborts the digestive process making you vomit, would you come to any real harm? Be realistic.

Apart from the unpleasant associations between thoughts, vomiting/thoughts of vomiting and other unpleasant sensations of anxiety, what is the worst thing that is going to happen to you if you do vomit?