Years ago, while I was in a pretty bad place, after a period of insomnia and one particularly bad night, I woke up with what I thought was chest pain. At the ti

Years ago, while I was in a pretty bad place, after a period of insomnia and one particularly bad night, I woke up with what I thought was chest pain. At the time, I had been worried about heart problems for a while, totally unjustified (young and no risk factors), simply based on stories I read of young people sometimes having heart attacks. I didn't seek help at first but as I was concentrating obsessively on my heart region and the sensations, the perceived pain grew stronger and stronger, until I persuaded myself I was having a heart attack and called an ambulance. I thought I would die before reaching the hospital, regretting that I didn't call earlier. They did a whole battery of tests, found nothing. Gave me 0.25mg Xanax, doctor asked if I was having stress at work (I was), and then I learned people can absolutely get realistic pains just from their mind alone. It's not a stretch to understand that if you consistently imagine such issues the stress hormones and other biochemical changes caused by such sensations will create actual damage in the organs.