Living With Purpose
If you’ve ever had the flu, you know the symptoms well—fever, muscle aches, runny nose, and more. For the flu and other physical disorders, symptoms do not differ much from person to person. With mental disorders, however, things are not so clear-cut. Symptoms of mental disorders can vary greatly from one individual to the next. Have you ever been afraid of a situation, person, object that you know could not harm you? Have you been fearful without knowing why? If so, you have experienced anxiety. Anxiety is fear that does not have an identifiable source or fear caused by danger that no longer exists.
Everyone experiences some anxiety at one time or another. For example, you may feel anxious before an exam, a job interview, a competitive athletic event, or maybe a date with someone special. These feelings are normal and usually short-lived. When anxiety persists and interferes with normal, everyday functioning, however, it is a sign of a mental illness known as anxiety disorder.
Today, many people are suffering the effects of anxiety and uncertainty about life. The pandemic and the daily grind of protecting self and family are taking their tole on our mental health. Coincidentally, when our mental health suffers, so does our physical health.
A renowned science reporter for the Associated Press several years ago wrote an article about worry and having an “anxious heart”. His point was people have developed physical heart complications when nothing externally or naturally seemed wrong—despite pains or other signs.
Anxiety heart disease has been researched extensively by the American Medical Association. Even as far back as the 1860s, some Civil War soldiers had it—it was called “irritable heart”. It was thought to be due to too much excitement, or similar causes. Lots of World War I Soldiers had this same trouble. The emotional cause became clearer when the heart trouble diminished within a week after the Armistice. Fear and anxiety cause it in civilians as well as Soldiers. It has also been related to the condition of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).
According to most physicians, the type of person who is at risk to have anxious heart is a person who is tense, easily embarrassed, sensitive to opinions, indecisive, overly conscientious, and trying to live by standards which are realistically too high. One expert finds that more than half the people who go to see heart specialists have anxiety heart disease.
Wellness advocates, health professionals, and doctors encourage people to be as active as their age and ability permits. For many, physical ailments come from built up tension within the emotional state of a person. Whether the cause of anxiety is in a person’s job, marriage, or from other sources, physical and spiritual care can aid in improving a person’s condition.
It can’t be emphasized too much, the helpful healing that awaits a person with an anxious heart, to listen to Jesus who said: “That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your Heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to Him than they are?” (Matthew 6:25-26). He went on to say in John 14:27, “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So, don’t be troubled or afraid.”
May we receive this peace in our hearts by accepting Christ as the keeper of our souls and do as the apostle Peter did: “Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you” (1 Peter 5:7).
