The National Institute of Mental Health reported two things that everyone can not afford to ignore. First, about 20 percent of American adults have had an anxiety-related disorder in the past few years. Second, around 30 percent of Americans can expect to suffer from anxiety in their lifetime. The list of anxiety disorders is quite extensive and includes– social anxiety disorder, specific phobias, agoraphobia, PTSD, separation anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, etc. These require the help of professional counseling services. People often confuse anxiety and nervousness together; however, both are different to great extents. Where the former can severely affect people like a panic attack, the latter can be best defined as sweating palms or a vibrating voice. In general, people with anxiety may feel anxious several times during a day, sometimes absolutely for no good reason or sometimes for certain particular things. Take a simple case of a job interview. You can feel sweat in your palms, which is normal, but you may have an anxiety disorder if you have trouble breathing. Anxiety can impact a person’s life in many ways. Read on to know more.
Impact Of Anxiety On Health
Anxiety disorders can severely impact your life by making you constantly feel stressed and under pressure, which can become life-threatening. The magnitude of stress can cause many health problems:
Neurological Issues
Another problem that anxiety may cause falls under the category of neurological issues. When you feel anxious or panic, the excess of anxiety and stress activates the sympathetic nervous system(SNS), commonly known as the flight or fight system. It starts working when you feel a sense of threat; however, you feel insecure, conscious, and panic most of the time in anxiety disorders, because of which, SNS starts working overtime, which can cause health problems. To be more precise, SNS is responsible for specific biological functions while others are the responsibility of another counteracting system known as the parasympathetic nervous system(PNS). The smooth functioning of SNS is crucial to keeping the body in the right balance.
Digestive Issues
Every part and function of our body is interlinked to a greater degree. Therefore, if you have an anxiety problem, the first thing you will experience is nausea, diarrhea, and stomach cramps. You can even lose the need to eat food or appetite that can considerably impact your overall weight. Even irritable bowel syndrome is, to some extent, caused by anxiety. As per research, chronic anxiety can make you more prone to ulcers by impairing your immune system.
Cardiovascular Problems
Stress is the root cause of all cardiovascular problems. When you feel anxious or stressed, your blood pressure and heart rate increase, making your blood vessels stiffer. This stiffness is a potential cause of heart attack and stroke.
Other Illnesses
As explained above, anxiety can strangely harm your immune system by activating your SNS. SNS boosts the immune system temporarily to fight health illnesses like infections, injuries, etc. But, in the long term, it can damage the immune system. Fighting diseases and infections is an uphill task on the part of our immune system that consumes a lot of energy. And, if you do not take proper rest and devote time to recovery, you will start getting sick more often.
Quality Of Life
Living a quality life is a dream of many. Some may want a big house, car, or a good meal, while some struggle to sleep peacefully. Quality of life is one thing that becomes so hard to achieve for them—the reason for anxiety disorder. A person with an anxiety disorder may constantly feel living in fear and become conscious of every move he makes. It makes it harder for people to try out new things and take risks in personal and work life because of fear of judgment or failure. Living with anxiety may feel like a cage set up by ourselves to trap ourselves.
Relationships
Humans are social creatures by nature, but anxiety takes away a human’s chance to interact and communicate with people. The worst impact anxiety makes on relationships. It dries out your ability and willingness to try out new things and make new friends. People find it hard to feel accepted by society, and this thought makes them turn to the path of social isolation.
How Divine Therapy Can Help
Living with anxiety is a nightmare for many people. You constantly feel worn out and under pressure. If you or someone you may know is struggling with anxiety and depression, search for an anxiety therapist Los Angeles. With the help of psychotherapy and counseling, your anxiety will reduce. The process is even simpler at divine therapy; we offer online sessions for people who can not come to us physically so that anyone from the world can benefit. Psychotherapy involves communication and helps people find out the root causes of their anxiety. Therefore, if you or your loved one needs help, do not ignore it, as leaving anxiety untreated can cause more harm.
