How you react to everyday setbacks can determine how long you live. Some days life can feel like an obstacle course. But if every bump in the road floods the mind with anxious emotions, it can cause premature ageing. This means you might be ageing faster than someone that doesn’t react as anxiously to the same situation.
Anxiety is no longer just a condition which turns a normal day into a battle. More and more research is showing that it can have devastating effects on your lifespan. Often this is due to accumulating diseases, but can also be from the stress the disorder inflicts on the body and mind.
A study tracking over 1000 adults for nearly 10 years, from the British Journal of Psychiatry found that the risk of premature death before the age of 57 was 1.7 times higher in individuals with anxiety disorders [1]. Almost 40% of these deaths were due to unnatural causes like accidents or suicide, whereas around 60% were from natural causes such as disease or medical conditions. When an individual was also diagnosed with depression, this further increased the risk of dying early.
This information is not supposed to stress you, but hopefully motivates you to seek treatment as soon as you can.
How does anxiety shorten lifespan?
Meet Jack, a dedicated small business owner who runs a cozy pizzeria. Despite his passion, he faces challenges from rising inflation and fierce competition from larger pizza chains, leading to a dip in sales. After covering his staff wages and other expenses, Jack finds little left to manage his personal commitments like his mortgage and daily costs.
The constant worry about finances casts a shadow over his everyday activities—paying bills, buying groceries, covering parking fees, and fueling his car. This persistent anxiety, known as chronic stress, leaves Jack feeling overwhelmed. To cope, Jack turns to smoking, seeking temporary relief, but this habit takes a toll on his health. Little does Jack know that the constant heightened stress combined with his smoking habits are shortening his lifespan.
What's happening in Jack’s body to cause this?
While many factors are at play, two key reasons stand out.
One is that anxiety contributes to a chronically stressed state, which leads to rapid ageing and disease [2]. Chronic stress is a risk factor for life threatening diseases such as stroke and cardiovascular disease in men [3], while middle-aged women with anxiety were at a 77% increased risk of dying early, mostly as a result of cardiovascular death [4].
When you are constantly stressed, you elevate the heart rate too often, signalling the body to turn on its alarms. These alarm systems elevate stress hormones, inflammatory molecules and blood pressure, preparing the body for a threat. Essentially chronic stress sets off a cascade of issues in the body. It triggers inflammation, which wears down cells and organs, leading to earlier disease and potentially a shorter life. The body can deal with these stressful situations when they occur infrequently. But when years and years go by of living in a predominantly anxious state, it is akin to repeatedly harming the body.
The second reason why anxiety can reduce lifespan is that anxiety often leads to other unhealthy habits. These include reduced physical activity, unhealthy eating, smoking, and reluctance to undergo treatment.
If anxiety shortens lifespan, then what can lengthen it?
If experiencing anxious states shortens lifespan, shouldn’t the opposite be true? Good news is on the way. A research group compiled data from 70 studies and found that being happy could increase your lifespan by an impressive 18% [5]. For example, if your projected lifespan is 80 years based on your current lifestyle, that could mean an additional 14 years. In this study, happiness referred to good moods and traits such as being satisfied with life or having a sense of humour.
It is so simple but powerful: things that make you happy help you live longer. While stress-relieving activities like meditation are beneficial, the research shows that anything that gives you enjoyment or relief can also add years to your life. Throwing yourself into fun or stress-relieving activities can be a huge first step towards reducing anxious feelings.
Ultimately, early treatment is the most effective way to resolve anxiety. Combining therapy with positive experiences can improve outcomes and possibly extend the lifespan.
Wrapping Up
The research shows that anxiety or phobias can be detrimental in the long, and short-term. Getting treatment sooner may not just improve your life, it could very well lengthen it.
Exposure therapy is a phenomenal tool for treating anxiety. Immersive experiences such as Virtual Reality are beneficial for reducing symptoms of anxious behaviours and phobias, including those at oVRcome. They provide a completely new virtual environment, free of the anxiety-provoking triggers present in everyday life, allowing individuals to expose themselves to perceived threats gradually.
Try our free anxiety and phobia tests to discover if oVRcome’s virtual reality exposure therapy could help you.
References
[1] Meier SM, Mattheisen M, Mors O, Mortensen PB, Laursen TM, Penninx BW. Increased mortality among people with anxiety disorders: total population study. Br J Psychiatry. 2016 Sep;209(3):216-21. doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.115.171975.
[2] Yegorov YE, Poznyak AV, Nikiforov NG, Sobenin IA, Orekhov AN. The Link between Chronic Stress and Accelerated Aging. Biomedicines. 2020; 8(7):198. doi: 10.3390/biomedicines8070198
[3] H. Iso et al., “Perceived mental stress and mortality from cardiovascular disease among Japanese men and women: the Japan Collaborative Cohort Study for Evaluation of Cancer Risk Sponsored by Monbusho (JACC Study),” Circulation, vol. 106, no. 10, pp. 1229–1236, Sep. 2002, doi: 10.1161/01.cir.0000028145.58654.41
[4] Institute of Medicine, Board on Global Health, and Committee on Preventing the Global Epidemic of Cardiovascular Disease: Meeting the Challenges in Developing Countries, Promoting Cardiovascular Health in the Developing World: A Critical Challenge to Achieve Global Health. National Academies Press, 2010. [Online]. Available: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20945571/
[5] Y. Chida and A. Steptoe, “Positive psychological well-being and mortality: a quantitative review of prospective observational studies,” Psychosom. Med., vol. 70, no. 7, pp. 741–756, Sep. 2008, doi: 10.1097/PSY.0b013e31818105ba.
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