50 Things That Anxiety Can Cause In Your Life That You Didn't Know About

Anxiety can cause multiple things in your life, if untreated. Those who are lucky recognize their anxiety early on, and treat it so that it does not continue to affect their life. Here is a list of 50 things that anxiety can cause in your life that you didn’t know about:

Marital problems. Anxiety is detrimental to a marriage or relationship. Mistrust, jealousy, fears, worry, can stress a marriage or relationship, which also leads to invalidation, unrealistic expectations, negativity.
Job performance problems. Having anxiety about performing can have detrimental effects on carrying out your job. The more you worry about the quality of your work, the more it suffers.
Sports performance problems. Competitive and successful athletes utilize anxiety to their advantage…then there are the rest of us who try to compete, unable to master anxiety, and it instead impedes us. Managing anxiety and the mental aspect of competition is the key to winning.
Health problems. Anxiety and stress wreaks havoc on one’s physical health, as one is at increased risk for high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart problems. Having anxiety places stress on the body, with subsequent release of stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, which increases heart rate, blood pressure, blood glucose, and other physiological responses.
Financial problems. Anxiety about money can make financial problems worse, as the worry about money can paralyze one with rumination and the negative emotional states associated with replaying money problems in one’s mind. The dwelling on the money trouble leads to inaction and mounting unpaid debt.
Family problems. Anxiety causes problems in the family. For instance, worry about the well-being of one’s children may cause a parent to not allow their kids out of their sight.
No fun. People with anxiety have no fun. And having fun is a healthy way to cope with stress. So not having fun only adds to the stress.
Missing out on life. Having anxiety is distressing and consumes much time. As such, one misses out on life, as so much energy and time is devoted to dealing with anxiety.
Eating problems. Anxiety has an anorexic effect, where one’s appetite is greatly reduced. And without proper nutrition and diet, the body is not able to regenerate and recover from the detrimental effects of anxiety. Try to counteract the anxiety by eating well and choosing nutritious food.
Will make you look older. People that are burdened and weighed down by anxiety and worry look older than people who are happy and full of life.
Will cause you to lose friends. Friends will get tired of hearing about the ruminations, worries, fears and apprehensions.
You will not be an effective leader. Effective leaders are confident, positive, and goal oriented. Anxiety instills fear, negativity, and paralysis. These are opposite traits one needs as a leader.
You will be passed up for promotions. Because you are so wrought with anxiety, you will be passed up for promotions, if you still have your job down the road.
You will not be able to handle crises. Having anxiety means that you are not able to handle crisis, as your coping skills are already being taxed.
People will stay away from you. Nobody likes to be around someone who is nervous and stressing out all the time.
No one wants to take your advice. Because your coping skills are not adequate enough to handle stress, nobody will take your advice.
You miss out on your kids growing up. Worrying and stressing about everyday events in your life risks you missing out on seeing your kids grow up. Having anxiety is not being present, as you are fearful and worried.
You miss out on your partner. As stated, suffering from anxiety prevents one from being present. One needs to be present in a relationship.
Your risk aversion does not get you anywhere in life. You know the saying: nothing ventured, nothing gained. Anxiety is detrimental to accomplishing anything, as one is worried about failure. Subsequently, one ends up doing nothing but worrying.
You will not develop as a person. Anxiety prevents one from developing important skills and milestones that helps one mature and progress as a person. For example, instead of leaving the family of origin to live as an independent adult at age 18, the anxiety and fear of the unknown keeps the teenager at home, not able to develop and live independently. Of course, there could be separation anxiety exhibited by the parents, who also contribute to the regression of their child.
You are judgmental and critical of others. Anxiety makes one critical of others.
You will be jealous. You envy other people who don’t have anxiety, and wonder how people cope with such stressors.
You can’t imagine how others without anxiety can be so happy. You wonder how people can be happy and not worry about things.
You can’t imagine how others without anxiety can accomplish so much. You wonder and are in awe of how much people can accomplish without being burdened by anxiety. But you can accomplish great things too.
You spend too much time in your head. Too much time in your head and too much thinking leads to inaction.
You spend too much time in isolation. Because you are risk aversive and uncomfortable with crowds, you avoid social settings and end up isolating yourself.
You may develop depression. Having anxiety may also make one depressed.
You will have a negative outlook on life. As a result of anxiety, you are always worried, with negative thinking.
Your kids may end up anxious. Your genetics and your modeling of anxious behaviors may influence you kids to also develop anxiety.
Too much time worrying. How much time have you spent worrying?
So what if you fail…most successful people do. Being fearful of failure is part of being successful. Michael Jordan was cut as a sophomore from his varsity high school team. We all know what happened after that. Successful people use setbacks as fuel.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Setbacks are opportunities to grow and become stronger.
Unrealized goals. Spending too much time worrying takes away time from working on goals.
Unfulfilled dreams. Dreams are not fulfilled when so much time is spent with catastrophic thinking and worry.
Feelings of worthlessness. When one is worried, ruminating, and unproductive, then it can make one feel worthless.
Terrorized by bad dreams. Exposure to trauma may inflict terror at night in the form of nightmares of the traumatic event.
Seeing the glass half empty. Negative thinking leads to seeing the negative aspects of life.
The king or queen of rumination. We’ve all done this before…a negative event or outcome is inflicted on us, and we rehash the factors that led up to the negative event. Replaying the events over and over only serves to make us feel worse, and we are paralyzed.
Everything is a catastrophe. People with anxiety resort to catastrophic thinking, where all outcomes are projected to end in tragedy.
Black and white thinking. People with anxiety appraise situations or outcomes as either black or white, and are not able to consider the grays and ambiguity.
Opportunities passed up. When one is constantly bombarded by anxiety, one does not see the opportunities.
Crisis not embraced as opportunity. Since failure and crisis are to be avoided at all cost, anxious people never get to work through their crises and grow from the experience.
Scared of own shadow. Life is not enjoyed due to fear and worry.
Nothing ever seems right. Everything has to be absolutely perfect, and much time and effort will be spent to gain the elusive goal of perfection.
Never able to relax. It is difficult to relax.
Way too serious. People with anxiety take their life too seriously.
The detrimental ‘what if’ scenarios. What if I fail. What if I embarrass myself? What if he/she says no? What if it does not turn out perfect?
You live the Bad Life, as opposed to the Good Life. So the Good Life is what we aspire to. Why give in to anxiety and let it control your life?
Too structured. So everything is planned, and you even know what you are going to do 5 or 10 years down the road. What if something does not go according to plan?
Not a hair out of place. Everything is in place, and I can never go out in public unless I look absolutely perfect. But attempts to control how you look only serves to highlight how out of control your life is, and how anxiety has taken control of you.