Plenty of research exists proving that there is a link between anxiety, general stress, and your physical health. Stress can weaken your immune system, allowing for a greater risk of illness and infection. However, there are ways to ease this effect, and research allows us to better understand our body’s response to feeling anxious. In an article provided by PsychologyToday, Graham C.L. Davey Ph.D. explains how.
Much of your day likely involves dealing with irritating, frustrating inconveniences. Everyday transactions can fall into this category, such as traffic or losing your belongings. Psychologist Arthur Stone and his colleagues found that daily hassles increased in frequency three to four days before common cold symptoms emerged.
However, where does anxiety fall in this? The correlation between daily hassles and frequency of worry is strong, suggesting a link between daily inconveniences and worry levels. Still, this does not mean worry itself is the problem here. The effects of worrying might be indirect. Worry might increase how we perceive the level of our daily hassles. This would cause stress that would lead to the release of the stress hormone which compromises your immune system.
Stress usually takes place during times of negative mood, and there is overwhelming amounts of evidence that negative mood results in a lowered immune system response to illness and infection. Worrying could very well be part of an intricate system that involves anxious feelings causing the immune system to lower its functioning, resulting in physical health problems.
Bart Verkuil and Jos Brosschot of Leidan University, along with Julian Thayer at Ohio State University have inferred that worry has a direct role in stress leading to physical health problems. They state that worrying increases the amount of time in which stress wears on the human body. Worry does this by prolonging the amount of time that you perceive a stressor to be stressful. This leads to an increased amount of time that the stress hormones are being pumped into your system, negatively impacting your immune responses.
Laura Kubzansky and her colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health analyzed the link between worry and coronary heart disease in a longitudinal study of older men. It was discovered that higher levels of worrying at the end of the study played a significant part in predicting coronary heart disease over a 20-year period. They concluded that chronic worry might directly increase the risk of coronary complications.
Findings from a study by Alison Holman support these findings. She and her colleagues studied the effects of acute stress that was caused by the terrorist attacks on 9/11. They discovered that ongoing stress about terrorism predicted cardiovascular issues up to 2 or 3 years after the attacks took place.
Verkuil, Brosschot, and Thayer linked these findings to the fact that this worry will prolong the strength of a stressor. For example, in the aforementioned study, they believe that worries about terrorism ensured that the effects of the stressful event continued way beyond the date that the event itself happened. This puts extended strain on a human’s physical health.
Mental health is just as important as physical health, and these findings provide us with the knowledge that mental health and physical health are closely linked. Looking out for your mental health is crucial, and it is worth it to seek out methods that work for you. Do not let certain coping methods not working for you discourage you from trying more. Not everything is going to work for everyone. If your stress and anxiety becomes unmanageable, reach out to a mental health professional and ask for support from your loved ones.
Davey, Graham C.L. “Can You Really Be ‘Worried Sick’?” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-we-worry/202202/can-you-really-be-worried-sick.