Why stop worrying? What are the effects of stress and worrying?

We worry because we can accept only the positive outcome of a situation and cannot handle its adverse result. But can we afford to worry if we know that worrying creates obstacles and delays work? Worrying is detrimental not only on the mental and physical health of a person, but also on their spiritual progress. It also has a negative impact on the quality of life and makes the situation worse. Thus, we should stop worrying and taking stress. Let us have a look at the effects of stress and worrying:

Mental Effects: Effects of Worrying and Stress on Mind

• Worry is the destroyer of understanding.
• Worry is a fire. One becomes consumed with anxieties that something bad may happen.
• Worries can lead to depression.
• The person who worries has lower concentration.
• A worried person takes longer to make decisions and they are usually not the right ones.
• Pessimism creeps in due to excessive worrying.
• Worries make a person focus on the problem and not on the solution.

Physical Effects: Effects of Anxiety on the Body

When one worries the mind is not present on the work at hand. What would become of a patient if the doctor’s mind wanders while performing surgery? Similarly, endless operations are going on within while eating. When the mind is not focused on the food while eating, the blood vessels become hard and results in high blood pressure and heart attack.

When you worry, the brain releases stress hormones into the bloodstream; the muscles get tensed and this results in backache, headaches, tremors, etc. Stress reduces the protective lining of the digestive system leading to gastrointestinal disorders.

Other physical effects that persuade us to make a firm determination of not to worry are:

• Lower immunity
• Insomnia
• Weight gain or loss
• Hair loss
• Skin damage

Does this motivate you to stop worrying?

Impact on the Work at Hand

• Worries have a negative impact on the work at hand. It reduces the quality of work from one hundred percent to seventy percent. Think about it, when you drive a car while worrying about your driving skills, you may cause an accident. If you worry while conducting your business, then you will end up making wrong decisions.
• Worries obstruct work. When you need to complete a task and are bogged down by worries then you never have the confidence that the task will be successful so you end up not doing it.

 Impact of Worries on the Quality of Life

• Waste of time : Worrying is a waste of time and energy. It diverts all our positive energy into negative energy and cripples our ability to take correct action at the right time.
• Lowers work efficiency: A worried person is spiraled in a whirlpool of thoughts. Hence, he takes a longer time to complete each task and therefore he wastes more time, thus lowering work efficiency. Instead on spending time on worrying he could have been spent the time constructively doing other work.
• Due to worries, we lose our understanding capacity, ability to accept change and other people’s viewpoints, we lose our patience quicker than before and thus tend to end up in conflicts in our relationships.
• We are less cheerful even during happy occasions.
• Worries can lead a person to get involved in vices like smoking, drinking etc., at first they use these escapes to cope with stress and then become prey to it.
• Relationships suffer because we are not able to spend quality time with our family and friends. Even if we are physically present, we are not emotionally able to connect with them the way they need.
• Those who worry lose their wealth.

Isn’t this enough to strongly resolve to stop worrying?

Spiritual Effects

• Worrying is aarthadhyan (adverse internal state or meditation that results (effect) in hurting the self). A single worry will result in a life in the animal kingdom. When a father dies while worrying about his unmarried daughter, it is the law of nature that he takes birth in the animal kingdom, where life is filled with abuse and ill-treatment.
• Worries bind karma of obstruction. Such karma prevent the fulfilment of your desires in your future life.
• Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan says, “Once in a while there arises an opportunity for a human being to become an individual with imposing values but if he wastes away his human life worrying, then he will lose the right to be born a human again. Grave indeed is the consequence of not realizing this.”

Tell Me Something That Will Help Me Stop Worrying

• When we stop worrying, we can be away from a lot of diseases.
• Why worry and burn from within? Do not worry. If you burn your clothes, you can buy new ones, but if you burn your own self, where will you get a new one?
• Worries create new bondage and perpetuate the worldly life for countless lives. It was due to the worries in the past life that we are here in this condition. Why worry and prolong the life cycles?
• When a person has a toothache, why does he not worry that it will hurt him forever? There is a time for everything. The pain will stop when the time is right.
• Nothing in this world is worth worrying about, not even for a second. Understand the reality that nothing will last and start living in the present with whatever is available.