Can Anxiety Kill You?

Video Transcript

Can Anxiety Kill You?

No, anxiety itself can’t kill you. However, there are some considerations.

First, some background information.

What Is Anxiety?

Anxiety can be defined as an uneasy physiological, psychological, and emotional reaction to believing a future threat has the potential to cause harm or an unwanted unpleasantness.

Where fear is a reaction to a real or perceived imminent threat, anxiety is a reaction to a future real or perceived threat.

What Causes Anxiety?

Anxiety is caused by apprehensive behavior. Behavior is defined as the ways we think and act. We create anxiety when we behave in anxious ways. Worry – imagining something bad or unpleasant might happen – is an example of apprehensive behavior that creates anxiety.

How Anxiety Affects The Body.

Anxious behavior, such as worry, activates the stress response. The stress response secretes stress hormones into the bloodstream, where they travel to targeted locations to bring about specific physiological, psychological, and emotional changes that quickly prepare the body for immediate emergency action.[1][2]

You can visit “The Stress Response” article for more information about the many body-wide changes caused by the stress response. The link is in the description.

The higher the degree of the stress response, the more dramatic the changes.

Since stress responses push the body beyond its internal balance (homeostasis), stress responses stress the body. As such, anxiety stresses the body.

Consequently, anxiety symptoms are symptoms of stress. They are called anxiety symptoms because anxious behavior is the main source of stress that stresses the body, and a body under stress can exhibit symptoms of stress.

Common anxiety symptoms include:

• Rapid heart rate
• Shortness of breath
• Trembling
• Sweating
• Chest tightness
• Lump in the throat
• Difficulty thinking clearly
• Strong feelings of doom, gloom, and dying

To name a few.

So again, no, anxiety, including strong anxiety, such as panic attacks, can’t kill you. Even though anxiety can cause strong physical, psychological, and emotional symptoms, anxiety itself is not physically or medically harmful.

Typically, the strong feelings and symptoms of anxiety subside as anxiety ends. Therefore, the strong feelings of anxiety are temporary and not medically harmful.

However, as mentioned, there are some considerations.

Anxiety Can Aggravate Pre-Existing Medical Conditions.

Even though anxiety itself is not medically harmful, the stress anxiety causes can aggravate pre-existing medical conditions that have the potential to be lethal, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease, to name a few examples.

This is why it’s important to discuss your anxiety with your doctor to ensure you have the necessary information to protect your health.

Furthermore, the effects of long-term unrelieved stress are linked to the development of many medical and mental health problems.

For instance, research has shown that chronic stress can lead to heart disease, auto-immune disease, weakened immune system, respiratory disorders, gastrointestinal problems, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, depression, and dementia, to name a few.[3][4][5][6]

While anxiety itself won’t kill you, the stress caused by long-term unrelieved anxiety increases the risk of premature death due to the development of stress-caused medical conditions.

Reducing And Eliminating The Risk.

Thankfully, there’s a lot we can do to mitigate the risk of premature death due to stress-caused medical conditions.

Reducing stress, living a healthy lifestyle, and addressing your anxiety issues can go a long way toward reducing and eliminating the increased risk of developing life-ending stress-caused medical conditions.

Working with an experienced anxiety disorder therapist is the most effective way to identify and successfully address the underlying factors that cause issues with problematic anxiety.

The more work you do to overcome your anxiety issues, the less of a risk of developing a stress-caused medical condition.

Should I Worry About Anxiety-Caused Stress?

Worrying about anxiety-caused stress will create anxiety that stresses the body. So, no, we don’t recommend worrying about anxiety-caused stress because it increases stress rather than reduces it.

However, we recommend acting on this knowledge so that you can actively reduce anxiety and the stress it causes, benefiting your overall medical and mental health in the long run.

Dealing with your anxiety and stress issues now can positively impact your health, especially your long-term health.

We recommend connecting with one of our recommended therapists to help you overcome your anxiety and stress issues sooner rather than later.