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After having chronic anxiety for sometime you’ll start to notice changes in your health. This is because anxiety creates stress and stress in big doses can effect the functioning of our bodies.
Stress can change our ability to digest food properly, it creates increased stomach acid which leads to GERD and heartburn, blood pressure may be temporarily elevated, your immune system becomes depressed so that you get sick more often and for longer periods of time, it can even increase cholesterol levels.
And there’s more – but I’m sure you get the point. Although anxiety disorders create mental anguish and fear anxiety can also take a toll on your general health. Being aware of this fact is critical since we all need to reduce the effects of this "silent killer".
We all have stress in our lives, but when you have too much stress things can get out of control in a hurry. So you should not only be aware of what stress is and what it can do to you – you should also do things to combat it.
Adding stress reducing foods to our diet is a good start. Here is a short list of foods filled with vitamins and minerals known to reduce stress. Things like zinc, iron, B vitamins, folic acid, vitamin C, and vitamin E can go a long way in toning down your nerves.
Asparagus
Beef
Almonds
Blueberries
Tuna
Fruit
In addition to eating right you also have to act right. Meaning taking part in activities that will lower your mental and physical stress levels. Try some of these activities to help you cope with your daily angst.
Breathing exercises
Yoga
Listening to Music
Exercise
Visualization
Meditation
Sex
There are many ways that you can choose to relief stress but the important thing is not how you do it but that you make an effort. We all have a tendency to put things off until tomorrow or next week. Next thing you know you’ve been telling yourself that you were going to start running this coming weekend for the past year.
Being a procrastinator is no excuse. Modern life is busy, hectic and sometimes crazy but if you really tried you could find sometime during the week to lower your stress levels. This will lower your anxiety levels and make coping with your anxiety manageable.
I have talked about this issue in the past but I don’t see myself dropping this issue any time soon. Even with anxiety at high levels I know people still become complacent and just put up with their condition. Well you can do better than you are doing but it requires work.
Work is not fun and sometimes just plain boring but nonetheless you should not allow a little (or a lot) of work to get in the way of you feeling better.
A word on procrastination by our favorite A Team member Mr. T.
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