Anxiety is your body’s natural response to stress. It’s a feeling of fear or apprehension about what’s to come. Ordinary anxiety is a feeling that comes and goes, but does not interfere with your everyday life. But, in the case of an anxiety disorder, the feeling of fear may be with you all the time. It is intense and sometimes debilitating.
Anxiety disorders are the most common form of emotional disorder and can affect anyone at any age. According to the American Psychiatric Association, women are more likely than men to be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.
During this uncertain era of Covid-19, people have their own set of legitimate concerns. People have been hesitant whether to receive a jab of the vaccine or not as it might have severe side-effects. With most of the reactogenic side-effects considered temporary inflammatory reactions, newer reports have highlighted that a lot of these side-effects are actually resultant of anxiety and not the vaccine in itself. While data released by the Indian government had revealed startling findings, similar reports are also available globally and proves for a fact that anxiety around COVID-19 vaccination is indeed, a concerning factor.
Immunisation-related anxiety reactions, as they are termed as a range of symptoms or side-effects which arise around inoculation and related to anxiety, and not really the vaccine product in itself.
While there can be a lot of reasons for anxiety to stem up in the first place, a common reason for hesitancy remains the fear, or phobia of needles (also referred to as trypanophobia). Recent studies have also indicated that needle phobia may be the cause of at least 10-15% of vaccine hesitancy cases in the UK and the US.
Anxiety in itself can manifest into different reactions and symptoms. When it comes to vaccination, anxiety or irrational fear of any kind can lead to an internalized stress response, which then shows up through a number of vasovagal responses, which are very similar to some vaccination side-effects and inflammatory reactions.
Right now, there’s no correct classification of what side-effects post vaccination could be reactogenic, and which ones could be anxiety-related.
However, having said that, since heightened stress levels fuel an internal physiological response that leads to a number of vasovagal reactions, some of the reported symptoms could be considered to be causative of anxiety, and not directly of the vaccine. As per case studies, some side-effects such as palpitations, elevated heart rate, nausea, fatigue, neurological symptoms such as shaking, weakness, dizziness or loss of consciousness could be linked to anxiety and extreme nervousness around vaccination. These reactions could also be fueled by underlying conditions as well.
In comparison to this, the most common and prevalent side-effects resultant of the vaccine administration are inflammatory in nature, such as running a mild fever, muscle pain, pain at the injection site, chills and weakness (flu-like reactions).
Experts also believe that rising anxiety around COVID-19 vaccination cannot just confuse precedence of post-vaccination side-effects, but also, in a way, hamper the efficacy of some of the COVID-19 vaccines as well.
Anxiety and stress, both often linked to each other, are known to weaken the immune system, and in a way, impact the immune system’s ability to fight off antigens. When stress rises, it triggers the release of cortisol in the body, which manifests into a number of reactions and release cytokines, which are a chemical that fuels inflammation in the body. Thus, it could happen that when a person faces an immense amount of stress or experiences anxiety, it may limit the vaccine’s ability to prompt the right immune response and lead to more inflammation.
