Anxiety can cause more damage than you think!

"I am so anxious. I hope they are fine."

"I have an anxiety problem. My heart might explode someday"

What I can assure you is your heart won't explode. However, there is no guarantee there will be no cardiac or other physical damage.

But let's focus the psychological or mental health aspect of it today. Shall we?

Whether you are generally an anxious person or a chill out guy, anxiety can get hold of you very often at workplace or due to personal reasons.

(Medically, when excessively anxious in personality and after assessment we call them people with Generalised Anxiety Disorder(GAD)).

Short or Long term anxiety may be causing you more than just mental harm.

Things that happen in your body when you have an "Anxiety/Panic attack" :

• A neurotransmitter named "Adrenaline" and Stress hormone named "Cortisol" gets released in your body because your brain goes into flight-or-fight mode.

• Your Sympathetic nervous System gets activated.

• There is undue and sudden increase in your

  1. Heart rate(Number of times your heart beats per minute)

  2. Respiratory rate (Number of times you breathe in-out per minute)

  3. Force of contraction of heart as a blood pump

  4. Activity of sweat glands

  5. Activity of Subconscious mind & undue fear/alertness

  6. Overthinking and expecting the worse result.Duh!

• Decrease in

  1. Tear and Saliva production (So you have dry eyes and mouth,unless you are crying)

  2. Digestion & Gut activity (Which is why long term anxiety may cause constipation or diarhhea)

  3. Control over your intelligenrt part of brain (Which is also why you lose control over decision making or Safe thinking. It can in turn train your sub-conscious mind to think you are always in danger in long run!)

The problem with anxiety or Panic attacks is that there is too little one can do to stop it immediately. It's the game of mind and mind is what you temporarily lose control over.

It can cause the following problems in long term cases :

• Chronic health issues like constipation, acidity/heart burn, stomach & duodenal ulcers, headches/migraine, nausea & vomitting, heart ailments/hypertension & related diseases.

• Overthinking, Negative thinking and Excess amount of fear of such episodes causing desperation and helplessness,Depression & suicidal thoughts.

• Personal and Professional life problems.

• Tedency to become Introvert and isolated. Effect on Social and Family life.

• Fear of being misunderstood. Lack of faith in people and religion/spirituality.

• Work/professional and creativity suffers.

Frequent counselling sessions help a lot in such times. Medications prescribed by Psychiatrists also help.

Talking to someone or being a little dependent temporarily on somebody can ease the mind until she/he can become mentally independent and healthy.

More on Anxiety/Panic attacks in our Mental health segment soon.

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