How A Negative Attitude Affects Your Health

You’ve had an overwhelming week at work filled with deadlines, stress, and conflict, followed by day after day when everything seemed to go wrong; you had a fender bender after work, were late picking up the kids from school, and missed an important appointment, for example. Your temper has flared more than once, and you end the week feeling defeated. You suffer feelings of inadequacy and overall negativity. By the weekend, you discover you’re getting sick. You collapse into bed, miserable, and wonder how you could have picked up this virus. Unfortunately, most individuals don’t realize just how much a negative attitude can affect their health and overall well being.

Results In Stress

Having a negative attitude in life can result in many health conditions, and one of the first to creep in is stress. Although this may seem like the most obvious, it is easily overlooked. Feelings of negativity can cause a person to have self-doubt, frustration, and anger, which results in stress to the mind and body. These cause the body to become stressed, which triggers the body's natural stress response system. Also referred to as the fight or flight response, it is a normal and healthy way the body reacts to outside stress. The body naturally releases a set of hormones when stressed, resulting in a rapid heartbeat and high blood pressure. It also raises glucose levels, while altering the immune system. If the stress goes unchecked, however, the stress response system remains active, resulting in a continuous flood of adrenalin and cortisol. This can change a person's mood and behaviors, as well as lead to many other afflictions. Stress can cause a pre-existing condition to worsen, as well as create new health conditions.