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Anna Lowe

Crystal Echols

English Composition II

20 March 2022

How does an anxiety disorder affect the mind and body?

Anxiety is one of the most common mental disorders with over three million diagnoses

around the world. A main symptom of anxiety includes excessive worrying that interferes with

daily life. Through new research, health conditions and other symptoms have been discovered in

relation. Anxiety disorders don’t appear in the same way so individual symptoms may differ.

Up until the 19th century, anxiety disorders were not diagnosed as such but were known

as a separate symptom of ‘neurasthenia’. In the early age of psychiatry, generalized anxiety

disorder and panic attacks were signs of the same mental illness (Abraham). Over time as

research has prevailed new discoveries the terms and symptoms used to define anxiety have

changed.

One of the most commonly agreed upon ways that anxiety affects the mind is its impact

on working memory capacity. “The processing efficiency theory (PET) states that anxiety

impedes the working memory system by disrupting the central executive component, which is

involved in complex functions,” (Hood et al. 546). A study performed using video games found

that participants with anxiety had decreased performance in tasks that relied on working memory

(Sorg and Whitney 240).

Another well-known effect of anxiety disorders is its interference with sleep. Sleep is an

important factor in our lives that allows for many health benefits. Poor sleep quality and anxiety
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disorders often interact by working together or aggravating symptoms of the other (Yue et al.). A

sleep study on children with anxiety found that they had more awakenings during the night and

less sleep overall (Forbes et al. 7). This study along with others have shown that anxiety

disorders can have major effects on the quality of sleep that people receive.

The constant stress put on regions of the brain from anxiety disorders can increase the

chance of diagnosis for depression and possibly Alzheimer's. Linda Mah and others write from

their findings, “Chronic stress exposure similarly alters fear neurocircuitry by enhancing

amygdalar functioning while causing structural degeneration in the PFC and hippocampus

thereby inhibiting PFC/hippocampus control over the stress response,”(Mah et al. 60). This

chronic stress on brain regions had also been linked to Alzheimer's disease. Unhealthy brains

with damage to neurons may become stuck and unable to respond to situations correctly. If this

condition persists, irreversible damage that leads to Alzheimer's may occur (McEwen 3).

In addition, there is evidence that shows people with an anxiety disorder are more likely

to have heart complications and a reduced heart rate variability. Many resources state that those

with anxiety are more likely to have reduced HRV, a sign of unwellness (Chalmers et al. 1). One

longitudinal study found substantial evidence that anxiety increased the risk of heart attack and

coronary heart disease (Janszky et al.).

New information has revealed more about the long-term consequences of anxiety

disorders. Anxiety disorders can affect both the mind, body, and an individual's quality of life. It

is an important subject to consider as many people around the world deal with anxiety.
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Bibliography

Abraham, Micah. “A Brief History of Anxiety.” Calm Clinic - Information about Anxiety, Stress,

and Panic, 10 Oct. 2020, https://www.calmclinic.com/brief-history-of-anxiety.

Chalmers, John A et al. “Anxiety Disorders are Associated with Reduced Heart Rate Variability:

A Meta-Analysis.” Frontiers in psychiatry , vol. 5 80. 11 Jul. 2014,

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2014.00080

Forbes, Erika E., et al. “Objective Sleep in Pediatric Anxiety Disorders and Major Depressive

Disorder.” Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, vol. 47,

no. 2, Feb. 2008, pp. 148–55. EBSCOhost,

https://doi.org/10.1097/chi.0b013e31815cd9bc.

Hood, Anna, et al. “Anxiety Mediates the Effect of Acute Stress on Working Memory

Performance When Cortisol Levels Are High: A Moderated Mediation Analysis.”

Anxiety, Stress & Coping, vol. 28, no. 5, Sept. 2015, pp. 545–62. EBSCOhost,

https://doi.org/10.1080/10615806.2014.1000880.

Janszky, Imre, et al. “Early-Onset Depression, Anxiety, and Risk of Subsequent Coronary Heart

Disease: 37-Year Follow-Up of 49,321 Young Swedish Men.” Journal of the American

College of Cardiology (JACC), vol. 56, no. 1, June 2010, pp. 31–37. EBSCOhost,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2010.03.033.

Mah, Linda & Szabuniewicz, Claudia & Fiocco, Alexandra. (2015). Can anxiety damage the

brain?. Current opinion in psychiatry. 29. 56-63. 10.1097/YCO.0000000000000223.

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McEwen, Bruce S. “Neurobiological and Systemic Effects of Chronic Stress.” Chronic stress

(Thousand Oaks, Calif.) vol. 1 (2017): 2470547017692328.

doi:10.1177/2470547017692328

Sorg, Barbara & Whitney, Paul. (1992). The effect of trait anxiety and situational stress on

working memory capacity. Journal of Research in Personality. 26. 235-241.

10.1016/0092-6566(92)90041-2.