Anxiety and your long-term health

We’ve all heard expressions extolling the virtues of stress: Pressure makes diamonds. No friction, no spark. You can’t make an omelet without cracking a few eggs.

But here’s one message you likely don’t see splashed across your social feeds: Stress and anxiety do real damage to your body.

Anxiety is associated with inflammation that can affect your whole-body health, including your mental health, heart, digestive tract, and even your cognitive health.

“While it’s true that overcoming stressful situations can feel great, it’s important to balance those gains with the real harm that prolonged stress and anxiety can create in the body,” says David Cook, LMFT, Clinical Manager of the ASPIRE and Young Adult Mental Health Programs at Hoag.

Cook advises that people seek out resources to help navigate stress—before it can negatively impact a person’s health. The long-term health issues that can arise from prolonged anxiety and stress include:

Heart Health

When stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline stay elevated, they trigger low-grade inflammation that can damage blood vessels, quietly reshaping how your cardiovascular system functions. This can result in increased blood pressure, plaque buildup, and a higher risk of heart disease.

“Stress is meant to be a short-term response, not a permanent state,” Cook says. “When it becomes chronic, it starts to wear on systems that are designed for recovery.”

Simple interventions like guided breathing, mindfulness training, and structured exercise can help lower cortisol levels and reduce inflammation. Even a few minutes of slow, intentional breathing each day can begin to calm the nervous system and ease cardiovascular strain.

Fatigue

If you feel constantly tired despite getting enough sleep, stress may be the hidden driver. Chronic anxiety disrupts the body’s energy regulation by keeping stress hormones elevated and promoting systemic inflammation. Over time, this can interfere with sleep quality, muscle recovery, and even how efficiently your body uses nutrients. The result is a kind of exhaustion that sleep alone doesn’t fix. You may feel mentally wired but physically drained.

“Think about energy as something that must be actively restored, not just spent. That includes consistent sleep routines, hydration, and gentle movement like walking—all of which help regulate the nervous system,” Cook says. “Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), available through Hoag’s mental health services, can also help interrupt the thought patterns that keep the body in a constant stress loop.”

Brain Health

Anxiety doesn’t just live in your thoughts—it changes how your brain functions. Chronic stress has been linked to inflammation in the brain, which can affect memory, concentration, and emotional regulation. Over time, elevated cortisol levels may even impact the structure of key brain regions involved in learning and mood.

This is why anxiety often shows up as brain fog, forgetfulness, or difficulty focusing. You may feel like you’re not thinking clearly. Because you’re not.

“When the brain is exposed to prolonged stress signals, it prioritizes survival over higher-level thinking,” Cook says. “That’s useful in a crisis, but counterproductive in daily life.”

Cognitive behavioral health therapy can help “downshift” the nervous system through techniques such as mindfulness meditation, biofeedback, and talk therapy. Even small changes, like curbing “doom scrolling,” can reduce your mental overload and give your brain the space to recover.

Stress may fuel achievement, but unchecked, it fuels inflammation. Learning how to manage the push and pull of anxiety and stress can help you take charge of your mental and physical health.

Learn more about mental health services offered at Hoag.