subject: Effects Of Anxiety On Our Daily Lives [print this page] The term anxiety is generally used to describe a persons reaction to a stressful event. It is normal to feel a surge of nervousness before a major life-altering event, but constant worrying leads to chronic anxiety disorder (when anxiety reaches an extreme high level).
People suffering from chronic anxiety disorder are jittery and find themselves constantly worrying about things, more than it is otherwise required.
Consequently, being in a persistent phase of acute anxiety has a number of adverse effects on our body. Sometime, the physical symptoms show up in mild forms like sweating and dizziness, but at times, the effects could be more severe.
How does anxiety affect our physical being?
Anxiety is basically the fight-or-flight mode that triggers the bodys hormonal imbalance and causes changes in the body. Some of the common symptoms are:
Nausea and dizziness
Fatigue
Headache
Acceleration of the heart rate
Hyperventilation or shortening of breath
Tension in the muscle leading to persistent muscle ache
Excessive sweating
Shivering, especially of hands and legs
Nervous tick
Listlessness and irritability
Drying of mouth and a constant feeling of thirst
Apart from these common and harmless symptoms, anxiety could lead to various threatening conditions.
To start with, anxiety can weaken the immune system, which is the bodys defense mechanism against diseases. Anxiety releases a surge of adrenaline, which temporarily raises the count of white blood cells in the body. These blood cells as it is known, helps to fight disease leading to germs and bacteria in the body. While anxiety does raise the level of white blood cells, being in a state of constant
anxiety can lower the number of white blood cells over a period of time, thus weakening the bodys immune system.
The release of adrenaline impairs the digestive system as well. Directly, a loss of appetite and heartburn could disrupt the normal eating and digestion procedure, but anxiety can also cause inflammation of the lining of the digestive system. This could lead to stomach ulcers and a digestive condition known as the irritable bowel syndrome.
If you are looking to improve your professional life, one thing that you need at all times is presence of mind and a good memory. Being stressed out and nervous can impair your ability to concentrate and can lead to short-term memory loss. This is especially common amongst students preparing for exams. They tend to forget half of the syllabi on account of being stressed out with the very thought of taking the exam.
By far the worst effect of anxiety is on the heart and stress-caused heart conditions are getting common by the day. A combination of heartburn, weakening of the immune system and an anxious restless mind, could have an adverse effect on the heart, paving the way for heart attack.
Although, there isnt substantial fact to prove this notions, but anxiety can lead to cancer as well. Studies are still being conducted, but a theory states that stress leads to a reduction in white blood cells, which can lead to the formation of cancerous cells in the body.
There are no positive effects of chronic anxiety, and you should try harder to overcome this disorder with the help of medicine, behavior therapy and willpower.
