Even though anxiety is one of the most common mental health conditions, that doesn’t mean it’s easy to deal with. When someone is dealing with any type of anxiety disorder, it can affect everything in their life. Not only will their mood be affected, but they can also experience challenging physical symptoms. Dealing with chronic anxiety and stress, without a doubt, takes a toll on both your mental and physical health. As you’ll be able to see below, anxiety often creates an endless cycle that causes a domino effect.
Understanding the connection between anxiety and how it affects your body can help you be more equipped to deal with all of your symptoms more easily.
The Toll of Anxiety on Your Body
Difficulty Sleeping
It’s not uncommon for people who deal with anxiety to also suffer from insomnia. Insomnia refers to when someone has trouble either falling asleep or staying asleep. As a result, this leads to someone feeling extremely tired the next day. Why is this, though?
Well, anxiety is as frustrating to deal with during the day as it is at night. However, one saving factor of anxiety during the day is that we are often distracted by a million other things going on. At night? That’s a completely different story.
As you lay in bed at night, you may find that your mind is racing, and you can’t seem to stop worrying. Everybody has heard about the importance of getting an adequate amount of sleep at night. With anxiety, that can sometimes feel impossible, but this leads to a domino effect of even more symptoms.
It Affects Your Immune System
When you sleep at night, your body works to reset itself and heal. If you don’t get at least seven hours of sleep at night, your body won’t heal as effectively, and this directly affects your immune system.
Anxiety causes the body to be in a state of constant hypervigilance. Simply stated, this puts a lot of wear and tear on your immune system. Chronic stress will cause your immune system to weaken, which is why you may notice that you also feel physically run down a lot or catch a lot of colds or other illnesses.
Physical Pains
As if anxiety couldn’t get any worse, it also can affect your pain levels. Chronic anxiety can cause your entire body to experience tension and pain. For example, do you notice that you’re getting headaches frequently without being able to pinpoint a cause? Or have you noticed that you are experiencing stomachaches or other G.I. issues? Both are symptoms that can be directly caused by anxiety and stress.
Additionally, stomachaches and headaches are common because of the body’s constant state of hypervigilance. This state can cause your body to be in overdrive, sending mixed signals to your vital organs and brain.
Reversing the Cycle
By reading the above points, you now likely have a better understanding of how anxiety can create a vicious cycle. It makes it very challenging for someone to try to overcome when their thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and symptoms influence one another.
While generalized anxiety disorders may be one of the most common mental health conditions in the world, the good news is that it is also one of the most treatable. While treating your anxiety won’t be an overnight fix, with some work and dedication, you can learn the coping mechanisms needed to help you manage your symptoms.
Taking control over your anxiety, and not the other way around, is absolutely possible. All it takes is reaching out to us to learn more about anxiety therapy and how we can help support you.
