Brain Zaps Anxiety Symptoms

Causes: What causes brain zaps, head zaps anxiety symptoms?

Medical Advisory

Talk to your doctor about all new, changing, persistent, and returning symptoms as some medical conditions and medications can cause anxiety-like symptoms.

Additional Medical Advisory Information.

General Overview - Understanding the Brain-Body Connection in Anxiety-Related Brain Zaps

When brain zaps and head zaps symptoms are related to anxiety, they can feel bizarre and frightening, but they are a direct result of how anxiety and stress affect your brain and body. Here’s a simple explanation of the connection:

• The Nervous System Under Stress: Anxiety triggers your body’s “fight-or-flight” response, releasing stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones can overstimulate your nervous system, including the brain, leading to abnormal electrical activity that may manifest as brain zaps.

• Neurotransmitter Imbalance: Chronic stress can disrupt levels of key neurotransmitters like GABA (calms the brain) and glutamate (excites the brain). An imbalance can cause brief, localized “misfires” in the brain, which you may experience as zaps.

• Heightened Sensitivity: Anxiety makes your brain’s fear center (amygdala) more reactive, amplifying your awareness of physical sensations like brain zaps. This can create a cycle where zaps increase anxiety, which worsens zaps. This is especially true for people with health and medical anxiety.

Understanding that brain zaps are a physiological response to stress, not a sign of a serious condition like a brain tumor, can help reduce fear. By addressing anxiety through stress reduction, healthy behavioral changes, and therapy, you can calm your nervous system and reduce or eliminate brain zaps over time.

More specifically, brain zaps can be caused by:

1. Side effects of medication

Some anti-anxiety and antidepressant medications have been reported to cause brain zaps and head zaps when taking the medication, changing dosage, and withdrawing. Examples of these medications include:

• SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) including Zoloft (Sertaline), Lexapro (Escitalopram), and Celexa (citalopram);
• SNRIs (Selective Serotonin and Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors) such as Effexor (Venlafaxine), and
• benzodiazepine medications such as Ativan, Xanax, Valium, and Klonopin.

To name a few.

Other types of medications have also been linked to brain zaps. They include:

• ADHD medications such as Adderall (amphetamine salts)
• MDMA (or ecstasy), an illegal recreational drug
• Some sleep medications
• And some combinations of drugs

At this time, the reasons why medication can cause brain and head zaps are unknown. Popular hypotheses include:

A. Low serotonin hypothesis

It was believed low serotonin was the cause of anxiety disorder (and depression). To treat this “chemical imbalance,” patients were given antidepressant medications that were thought to increase the deficient chemicals and, over time, restore them (serotonin and norepinephrine) back to a healthy level.

However, people taking these medications often experience brain zaps as a side effect of these medications [1]. Theorists speculated that brain and head zaps were caused by low levels of serotonin[2] and how the medications were trying to elevate them.

There are problems with this theory, however. Many people have low levels of serotonin yet don’t experience brain or head zaps.

B. Low GABA hypothesis

GABA (Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid) is the brain’s primary inhibitory neurotransmitter responsible for calming the nervous system. Low levels of GABA have been linked to many conditions, including anxiety, depression, seizures, and movement disorders.

Research has found that low levels of GABA can trigger seizures [3][4]. This raises the possibility that conditions that cause a reduction in GABA, such as anxiety and depression, can cause brief episodes of localized seizures, such as brain zaps and head zaps.

Seizures are caused by the over-excitement of neurons that then cause an “excessive, hypersynchronous discharge” in the brain [5]. This discharge can cause abnormal neuronal firing that sends uncontrolled neurological signals to the rest of the body, causing convulsions and loss of consciousness.

Minor localized seizures, however, produce a small effect. This localization is thought to account for the brain zaps and head zaps symptoms where the effects of the “electrical shock” feelings are minimal.

C. Withdrawing from a psychotropic medication

Brain and head zaps are often associated with withdrawing from psychotropic medications, such as SSRIs, SNRIs, and benzodiazepines [6][7], as well as some sleep medications. Since SSRI and SNRI antidepressants, benzodiazepine, and some sleep medications cause an increase in GABA, it’s thought that withdrawing from these medications causes a reduction in GABA. The decrease in GABA is responsible for the brain and head zaps.

2. Chronic stress (hyperstimulation)

People who don’t take psychotropic or sleep medications also experience brain zaps and head zaps. Chronic stress, which we call stress-response hyperstimulation, is a common denominator for those who experience head and brain zaps.

I (Jim Folk) experienced many head and brain zaps during my struggle with anxiety disorder. I didn’t take antidepressants, and I had many head and brain zaps long before I took benzodiazepines. Consequently, I tend to lean toward the following explanation as being the cause of anxiety-caused brain zaps and head zaps.

Chronic stress, such as the stress caused by overly apprehensive behavior, has a deleterious effect on the body, particularly the nervous system (which includes the brain). Chronic stress affects neurotransmitter levels, including GABA and Glutamate, the body’s primary excitatory neurotransmitter, and adversely affects neurons and how they function.

Consequently, hyperstimulation can cause the over-excitation of neurons similar to the cause of seizures but on a smaller, more localized scale [8].

According to an online survey we conducted, just less than half of anxiety disorder sufferers experienced brain zaps and head zaps due to anxiety disorder.

Chronic stress and its effects on the body are common causes of brain and head zaps.

3. Sleep deprivation

Stress can lead to sleep problems, such as insomnia or poor sleep quality. However, it's important to remember that sleep plays a crucial role in regulating neurotransmitter levels, which in turn ensures proper brain function.

Sleep disruption, often caused by stress, including anxiety-caused stress, can cause the brain to become more prone to abnormal electrical activity and neurotransmitter imbalances, which can contribute to and increase the likelihood of experiencing brain zaps.

4. Psychological Factors

Stress triggers increased brain activity in the amygdala, the brain's fear center. This heightened amygdala activity can make anxious individuals more attuned to physical sensations, including brain zaps. The resulting increase in stress and awareness can lead to a feedback loop, where stress causes brain zaps, which in turn, heightens stress and anxiety levels, leading to more brain zaps.

Moreover, many anxious people have health and medical fears, making them especially sensitive and reactive to physical symptoms. Consequently, these fears can exacerbate stress, anxiety, and symptoms, including brain zaps, strengthening the feedback loop and worsening all three.

5. Other Factors

Other factors can create stress and cause anxiety-like symptoms, as well as aggravate existing anxiety symptoms, such as brain zaps, including:

• Recreational drugs
• Stimulants
• Fatigue
• Hyper and hypoventilation
• Low blood sugar
• Nutritional deficiencies
• Dehydration
• Hormone changes
• Pain

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Head brain zaps with other symptoms

While anxiety brain zaps symptoms can occur on their own, they can also be accompanied by other symptoms, such as dizziness, trembling, shortness of breath, tight throat, numbness, pins and needles, and so on. Since anxiety-caused stress is a common cause of the head and brain zaps symptoms, brain zaps can be accompanied by one, a few, or all of your anxiety symptoms. All combinations and variations of symptoms that co-occur with brain zaps are common.

Just because you have other symptoms with your brain zaps doesn’t mean there is a different or more serious cause. Again, it’s common for brain zaps to occur by themselves or along with other symptoms.