Health anxiety back after a long time following a University lecture!

[JHAG86]

I am 37 and have had long standing anxiety in general but mostly health anxiety. I have been very bad in the past but through lots of therapy and coaching myself I managed to get to a great place in the last 2 years.

After maybe 15 years of health anxiety my biggest worry became the years of daily stress and adrenaline coursing through my body and the undoubted damage it had done. I came round to understanding that nothing bad would ever come of this and managed to start getting well.

However in a social work university lecture just recently one of our tutors (whose background is health inequality) told us that irrefutably cortisol in the system over a long period has now definite links to cancer and heart disease whereas I had come to the conclusion it hadn't previously.

Now I feel I am back to square one. Constant thoughts, worries of dying, worries of heart attacks and cancer and adrenaline dumps constantly all day! I am exhausted again and feel really bad.

Is he right? Or am I reading too much or incorrectly even, into what he was saying. Any help or support would be really appreciated.

Thanks guys

[JHAG86]

If anybody could help in any way if they know about it or if I'm misreading into it or just support would be great!

Thanks everyone

[Worried_91]

Hi JHAG86

I have had this worry also, the effects that constant anxiety and high cortisol levels can have on our bodies.

Links to those diseases have been found, although partly it seems is how we deal with the anxiety. I.e. eating an unhealthy diet and avoiding exercise. So, I've tried mitigating this by eating as healthily as possible and a large proportion of whole foods. I also exercise, going to the gym 4/5 times a week. But getting in a decent walk is great for anxiety, especially by the sea or in a forest does wonders for reducing amxiety.

I believe you can really avoid the negative impact of anxiety on our bodies by eating well, look at the Mediterranean diet for example. It has significant benefits on heart health and brain health. Ensuring you're getting enough fruit and veg daily, healthy fats, for eg. Nuts, fish, avocado, olive oil. These are also great sources of antioxidants which can help prevent certain cancers.

Anyway, I hope this has helped a bit and please feel free to message me.

Worried91

[JHAG86]

Thank you very much for this reply. I do try and eat well but will double down my efforts on this. I will look at those diets.

Thanks again for your support

[serith]

It's not that he's wrong, cortisol in the blood definitely leads to higher chance of cancer, heart disease, etc.,... in the same way that, like, being in the sun leads to a higher chance of cancer. It's a matter of perspective.

Think about the word "higher". As in "higher chance of cancer." In your health anxiety brain, you interpret the word higher as like 300% higher, or "I am for sure going to die tomorrow" or something. But what the doctors often mean when they use the word "higher" is, like 5 out of 1000 will get it, instead of 3 out of 1000 people.

[Strew49]

I hope you're feeling a bit better? I don't know too much about the longer term impacts of cortisol, but I'm a University Lecturer and alls we can really do in a lecture is summarise recent and impactful literature. It doesn't mean that literature will stand the test of time! For example, that study could have been done under very specific conditions, and perhaps your lecturer was going off statistical significance rather than the effect size. One of my lecturers when I was still studying explained the difference to us as this: many studies will tell you there's a link between red meat and cancer, because there is statistic significance reported across studies, but the studies with reported effect sizes indicate that the chances of it actually happening in a human lifetime are slim/dependent on the amount of red meat you eat and for how long. Just because there is a link doesn't tell us much about the likelihood of it manifesting in an average lifetime. I've been spooked a couple of times by studies showing trauma causes changes in the brain etc, but when I've asked colleagues who specialise in this I'm told this overlooks the fact that reducing the stress/trauma could potentially reverse said changes. Academic articles are usually hyper focussed on showing a particular effect, rather than capturing the wider context.

[EKB]

I can’t remember the article, but I was reading about burnout and one mentioned the links between high cortisol and all sorts of things. But, in line with what Strew49 has said, the article also said that those effects can be reversed as burnout recovery progresses and we work on good habits like rest, sleep, exercise, etc. - so that’s potentially good news!