“How Worry Affects Your Body?”

How Much Is Too Much? We all worry from time to time, but if you can’t shake it after a few weeks or it starts to get in the way of your normal work or home life, talk to your doctor. It can take a toll on your health and might be linked to an anxiety disorder. Therapy, drugs, and other strategies can help.

Nervous System: This messaging network is made up of your brain, spinal cord, nerves, and special cells called neurons. Worrying too much can trigger it to release "stress hormones" that speed up your heart rate and breathing, raise your blood sugar, and send more blood to your arms and legs. Over time, this can affect your heart, blood vessels, muscles, and other systems.

Muscles: When you’re troubled about something, the muscles in your shoulder and neck can tense up, and that can lead to migraines or tension headaches. Massage or relaxation techniques, like deep breathing and yoga, may help.

Breathing: If you’re worried a lot, you might breathe more deeply or more often without realizing it. While this usually isn’t a big deal, it can be serious if you already have breathing problems linked to asthma, lung disease, or other conditions. 

Heart: If it sticks around long enough, something as small as a nagging concern in the back of your mind can affect your heart. It can make you more likely to have high blood pressure, a heart attack, or a stroke. Higher levels of anxiety can trigger those stress hormones that make your heart beat faster and harder. If that happens over and over, your blood vessels may get inflamed, which can lead to hardened artery walls, unhealthy cholesterol levels, and other problems. 

Blood Sugar: When you’re worried about something, stress hormones also give you a burst of fuel (in the form of blood sugar). This can be a good thing if you need to run from danger, but what happens if you don’t use that fuel? Your body normally stores it to use later. But sometimes, if you’re overweight or have diabetes, for example, your blood sugar can stay too high for too long. This can lead to heart disease, strokes, or kidney disease.

Immune System: If your body is affected by the physical effects of worry, it may not fight germs as well. Just thinking about things that made you angry or depressed in the past can take a toll. It can make it harder for you to fend off the flu, herpes, shingles, and other viruses. 

Stomach: You may feel “butterflies” in your stomach when you’re nervous -- in more serious times, you may feel nauseous or even vomit. If this happens often, it can lead to stomach pain and sores in your stomach lining (ulcers). And if you eat a lot of foods high in fat and sugar, your stomach has to work harder to digest them, and that makes more acid. This can cause acid reflux -- when acid flows up into your throat.

Intestines: Constant fretting can affect your bowel habits -- you could have diarrhea or find it hard to go to the bathroom. Diet, exercise, and over-the-counter medicines can often help, but you might be able to keep these problems from happening if you find ways to calm your anxiety.

Sexual Health: Worry can tire you out and distract you so you’re less interested in sex. Over the long term, it can lower a man’s levels of the sex hormone testosterone. That can affect sperm development and slow or stop his body’s normal response when he wants to have sex. For women who have gone through menopause, it can make hot flashes and sleep issues worse.

Reviewed by Smitha Bhandari, MD on July 17, 2017

American Psychological Association: “Stress Weakens the Immune System,” “How Stress Affects The Body.”
Anxiety And Depression Association Of America: “Managing Anxiety.”
Clujul Medical: “Anxiety and IBS revisited: ten years later.”
Gastroenterology and Hepatology From Bed to Bench: “Psychological disorders in patients with chronic constipation.”
Harvard Health Publications: “Why stress causes people to overeat,” “The gut-brain connection.”
Medscape: “Severe Gastro-oesophageal Reflux Symptoms in Relation to Anxiety, Depression and Coping in a Population-Based Study.”
NIH Health and Human Services Manuscript: “Anxiety and Depression: Linkages with Viral Diseases.”
Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity: “High anxiety:
Recognizing stress as the stressor.”

Much Love, Dr.Shermaine #InformativeRead #PleaseShare #HealthyBodySoulAndSpirit #IWantYou2Live

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“Worrying is carrying tomorrow’s load with today’s strength. Carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.” (Corrie Ten Boom)

“I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.” (Mark Twain)

“Worrying won’t stop the bad stuff from happening, it just stops you from enjoying the good things.”

“Worrying is stupid. It’s like walking around with an umbrella everyday waiting for it to rain.”

“Worry is a total waste of time. It doesn’t change anything. All it does is steal your joy and keeps you very busy doing nothing.”

“A Day of worry is more exhausting than a Week of work.”

“Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration and resentment.” (Dale Carnegie)

“Interrupt worry with gratitude.”

“You can destroy your Now by worrying about Tomorrow.” (Janis Joplin)

“Worry can do a lot of things TO you, however Prayer can do a lot of things FOR you.”

“Worry is a misuse of your imagination.”

“Worries and tensions are like birds, we cannot stop them from flying near us; but we can certainly stop them from making a nest in our mind.”

“When you feel like you’re ‘drowning’ in life’s situations, don’t worry, your lifeguard walks on water.”

“Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.” (Leo Buscaglia)

“What worries you masters you.” (Haddon W. Robinson)

“Worrying is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do, but it gets you nowhere.” (Glen Turner)

“There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.” (Mahatma Gandhi)

“Worry will Never change the outcome.”

“If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it’s not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.” (Dalai Lama)

“Worry is like taking a walk on the beach in July, wearing a down coat, fearing the expectation of snow. It’s stupid.”

“Don’t worry, God is never blind to your tears, never deaf to your prayers, and never silent to your pain. He sees, He hears, and He will deliver.”

“Worry gives a small thing a big shadow.” (Swedish Proverb)

“There is a great difference between worry and concern. A worried person sees a problem, and a concerned person solves a problem.” (Harold Stephens)

“Don’t worry about dying; worry about not living.”

“Worry is the interest paid in advance on a debt you may never owe.”

“Worry pretends to be useful but serves no useful purpose.” (Eckhart Tolle)

“I used to worry about the labels others placed on me. Until I realized my limitations weren’t coming from their labels, but from my own.” (Dr. Steve Maraboli)

“God has already worked out what you’re worried about.” (Pastor Steven Furtick)

“Worry is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.” (Arthur Somers Roche)

“Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety, or the handle of faith.” (Henry Ward Beecher)

“To understand the unimportance of worrying, try to remember what you were worried about on this day last year.” (Gail Lynne Goodwin)

“When I’m worried it’s usually because I’m trying to do everything myself. When I’m at peace, it’s usually because I remember that God is in control.” (Dave Willis)

Philippians 4:6-9, “Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.” (MSG)

Matthew 6:30-34, “If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” (MSG)

Matthew 11:28-30, “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (MSG)

Romans 8:26-28, “Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.” (MSG)

YOUR ASSIGNMENT FOR TODAY: “DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY!”