As an anxiety sufferer you may spend a lot of time concerned about your immediate health. You may spend a great deal of time wondering what exactly is going to kill you since your convinced your about to die.
But although you worry generally you still have that small rational thought pattern that somehow reassures you that you are in fact healthy. So there you are going back and forth about the connection between your nerves and your health. Well it turns out all that worry was not baseless brain babble.
Researchers believe that there is a direct connection between anxiety disorder and heart disease. According to an article I recently reviewed anxiety disorders can increase your risk of heart disease by as much as four times. The article I reviewed spoke about panic disorder as the culprit but the symptoms they cited as being unhealthy in the long run sound awful familiar.
Let’s see there were palpitations – check. Repeated episodes of intense fear – got that. Chest pains, dizziness, depression, yes yes and yes. So it seems that anxiety symptoms, however labeled, are the basis of this increased risk for heart disease.
The good scientist don’t know the underlying cause but they know there is a link. They mainly know this because when they looked at the overall health of people with anxiety disorder over a long period of time many of them subsequently developed heart disease.
Imagine that a real risk. Well I didn’t write this post to scare anyone and in fact I only want to create awareness so that those of you that are not taking care decide to shape up.
People that develop anxiety disorder tend to be overweight, hypertensive, depressed, inactive, smokers, and have increased stress hormones circulating in the body. The good news about these negative traits is that they are correctable.
Some of us are genetically predisposed to heart disease, but even with this family history if you take steps to watch your weight, avoid smoking, eat right, exercise, and make serious attempts at relaxation you can in fact increase your chances of avoiding or at least delaying the onset of heart disease.
So after all those “oh my goodness’s” and “oh no’s” it seems that at least some of our fears are real. This doesn’t mean however that you should live in fear. As long as you take proactive steps to curb your risk you should feel confident that you can live to a ripe old age.
If you don’t take this seriously though I suggest you have a change of heart (no pun intended). Heart disease is the number one killer of all Americans of any type. Luckily there are many resources that you could use to learn, in detail, about how you can avoid this potentially life threatening condition.
If you want to read more about the connection between anxiety disorder and heart disease click here.
To learn more about heart disease and how to increase your heart’s health click here.
A note to my female readers: The video I included gives a good overview of the connection between anxiety and heart disease but it of course only focused on men. You should note however that based on the material I was able to review for this post women are at a similar risk. The percentages of risk may be variable but the risk is present.
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