How Anxiety Impacts Your Physical Health
May 02, 2025
It’s easy to think anxiety happens just in your head. Feeling overwhelmed in crowds or panicking before a big meeting feels mental, right? But anxiety isn’t only in your mind — it’s in your gut, your nerves, and your muscles.
Dr. Tomas Rios and Dr. Nicolin Neal of Rios Healthcare Associates in Houston and Sugar Land, Texas, explain how anxiety disrupts your body’s systems and how our treatments can improve your mental and physical health.
The first thing to know is that anxiety triggers your autonomic nervous system — your body’s automatic control center for functions like breathing, heart rate, and digestion.
When you sense danger or stress, this system activates your fight-or-flight response, releasing a wave of stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones give you the energy to face the threat and get past it.
For short-term situations, this response is helpful. But chronic anxiety keeps the system stuck in overdrive, leaving your body in a constant state of tension. Over time, this ongoing stress takes a toll on your health.
Here’s how unchecked anxiety affects your body:
Chronic anxiety causes rapid heart rate, palpitations, and high blood pressure. If you already have heart disease, anxiety can increase your risk of coronary events.
The digestive system is highly sensitive to anxiety, so you may experience bloating, nausea, diarrhea, or indigestion. Persistent anxiety also puts you at higher risk for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
Frequent muscle tension, especially in the shoulders, neck, and jaw, is common in people with anxiety. Over time, this constant tension results in chronic pain, stiffness, and headaches.
Anxiety causes shallow and rapid breathing and low oxygen levels, which can cause complications if you have asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Long-term anxiety floods your system with stress hormones, weakening your immune response, leaving you more susceptible to illnesses, and making it harder to fight infections.
Difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep is a common anxiety side effect. Poor sleep can spiral into other health problems, including fatigue and weakened immunity.
At Rios Healthcare Associates, Dr. Rios and Dr. Neal approach anxiety holistically. We don’t just treat symptoms; we aim to improve your entire well-being with:
We carefully tailor your medication plan to your unique needs, weighing your mental and physical symptoms to find the best fit.
We may recommend cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), an evidence-backed method that restructures and replaces harmful thought patterns with healthier ones.
The physical effects of anxiety are different for everyone. Some may have disrupted sleep, while others deal with gastrointestinal problems. We personalize your treatment to alleviate these physical symptoms and bring your body back into balance.
Whether you’re managing mild unease or debilitating panic, we can help. Book online or call us at Rios Healthcare Associates to address the full spectrum of anxiety symptoms.