Can Worrying About My Symptoms Be Enough To Cause Them To Linger?

Video Transcript

Can worrying about my symptoms be enough to cause them to linger? I mean, if I eliminate all my external and internal stressors but still worry about my symptoms, would that be enough to prevent my symptoms from subsiding?

Anxious behavior, such as worry, activates the stress response, which prepares the body for immediate emergency action.

Visit “The Stress Response” section for more information about the many body-wide changes caused by the stress response.

Since stress responses push the body beyond its internal balance, stress responses stress the body. A body that becomes chronically stressed can exhibit symptoms of stress.

Therefore, anxiety symptoms are symptoms of stress. They are called anxiety symptoms because anxious behavior is the main source of the stress that stresses the body, causing symptoms.

As such, anxious behavior stresses the body.

So, every time we worry, we stress the body. The more we worry, the more stressed the body becomes and the more symptoms it produces. As the frequency and degree of worry increase, so do the body’s stress and symptoms.

It doesn’t matter what the subject of the worry is. As long as you regularly worry, your body can become chronically stressed and symptomatic.

So, yes, worrying about your symptoms can be sufficient to keep your body stressed and symptomatic even though you eliminate all other external and internal stressors.