Do You Know These Facts About Anxiety?

• Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the USA, affecting 40 million adults, aged 18 and up, or 18.1% of the population every year.
• Anxiety disorders are highly treatable, yet only 36.9% of those suffering receive treatment.
  
• People with an anxiety disorder are three to five times more likely to go to the doctor and six times more likely to be hospitalized for psychiatric disorders than those who do not suffer from anxiety disorders.
  
• Anxiety disorders develop from a complex set of risk factors, including genetics, brain chemistry, personality, and life events.

How Are You Feeling Today?

These days I’m sure you’re feeling stress and pressure at more times than you’d like.

My posts in this series come from the desire to help you live a less stressed life.

You see, over the last few weeks, four or five people have asked me the same thing…

How do you work so hard yet seem to live without any stress…

Yes, I have two companies, lecture at a university, coach a small group of entrepreneurs, go to the gym 4 or 5 times a week, travel as much as I can, and yet don’t get stressed. Well, not as much as I used to…

When I was asked to give my magic formula, I thought my answer would be more useful if given to all my blog readers.

That way I can help more people in one hit.

Ok, I know this blog isn’t huge…

At this time of writing, we only get between 2,850 and 3,250 readers per month. Although our best month has been upwards of 25,000 visitors, we don’t reach that level every month.

But to get my message out and to help more people improve the quality of their lives IS definitely one of my goals…

You probably have stress at work, you probably have stress at home, there’s always so much that you need to get done.

Stress and anxiety have most likely become part of your life. Unfortunately.

But how do you deal with your stress?

Most people don’t.

Stress can cause havoc on your body.

Let it rage free and stress will make screw your life up. 

The statistics are mental. 

Approximately 18% of American adults suffer from an anxiety disorder.

This could total anywhere between 35 and 40 million people! 

Research conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health has shown that anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness, even more than depression.

Females are affected twice as much as males.  

Men are not unaffected though; anxiety disorders in males are second only to alcohol and drug abuse.

 Anxiety takes a toll on our health AND on our finances. Reportedly about $50-55billion per year in America.  

What is very worrying is that anxiety sufferers see an average of five doctors before being successfully diagnosed.

Stress and anxiety are bed partners. 

One of the major symptoms of stress is anxiety.  And stress accounts for 80% of all illnesses either directly or indirectly.

Stress is more definitely more dangerous than we used to think.

You probably already know that it can raise your blood pressure, increasing the likelihood of a stroke.

But recently it’s been claimed that 90% of visits to a doctor are because of stress.

Health Psychology magazine reports that chronic stress can interfere with the normal function of your immune system.

And studies have proven that stressed individuals have an increased vulnerability to catching an illness and are more susceptible to allergic, autoimmune, or cardiovascular diseases.

I’m sure your doctor agrees that during chronic stress, the functions of the body that are nonessential to survival, such as the digestive and immune systems, shut down.

Stress is basically making us sick.

Furthermore, stress often makes us lazy and leads to unhealthy behaviour such as smoking, drinking alcohol, eating the wrong foods, and skipping the gym.

This damages our bodies as well as leading to the wear and tear of the stress itself.

I don’t think you can totally kill off all stress. It’s part of life.

However, you can manage it.

And that’s where Part 2 of this series on stress will start.

My wife is screaming for me to jump in the shower as she’s starving.

So I promise to get back to part 2 as soon as I can.