In a world full of uncertainty and challenges, it’s pretty common to experience anxiety. But while a little stress is normal, chronic anxiety can have a damaging effect on your overall well-being ― including your brain health.
A new study led by researchers at the University of Newcastle in Australia and published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society found that people who deal with anxiety are more likely to develop dementia as they age.
The study consisted of 2,132 people ages 60 to 81 whose anxiety levels were measured via the Kessler psychological distress scale, a 10-question analysis that measures anxiety and depression. The subjects were followed for 10 years. Each person reported their anxiety level twice during the 10-year period — those who reported anxiety both times were categorised as having chronic anxiety, while folks who reported anxiety only during the second evaluation were defined as having new onset anxiety.
The study found that people with chronic anxiety were 2.8 times more likely to develop dementia, and those with new onset anxiety were 3.2 times more likely, than people who did not report those conditions. Folks who reported anxiety during the first assessment but not the second did not have a higher risk of developing dementia.
How are anxiety and dementia linked?
While an anxious moment can be a normal reaction to a stressful situation, ongoing anxiety is problematic. It’s tied to both cardiovascular disease and brain cell damage, according to the study. Both of these issues can put you at higher risk of developing dementia.
“I’ve been telling my students at Tulane for years that, essentially, if it’s bad for the heart, it’s bad for the brain,” said Dr. Gregory Bix, the director of the Clinical Neuroscience Research Center at Tulane University in New Orleans. Bix is not affiliated with the study.
For example, “when your blood pressure is untreated and elevated, chronically, you got damage to the brain, which can lead to cognitive decline and dementia,” he said.
Researchers pointed out that folks with anxiety are also more likely to engage in behaviors like not exercising, smoking, and having an unhealthy diet, all of which can lead to dementia as well.
“Mental health and well-being affect the heart, which in turn affects the brain,” Bix said. It’s all a cycle.
The study did have a limitation: The anxiety assessment was based only on the four weeks of a subject’s life leading up to their evaluation. Participants could have experienced anxiety before that four-week measuring period or after they took the test. Therefore, there’s a chance there’s some data that isn’t accounted for.
Anxiety and dementia are real issues for many people. It’s estimated that 301 million people in the world experience anxiety, while 55 million people are estimated to have dementia ― with that number expected to grow in the future.
Doing what you can to limit anxiety and its effects, like high blood pressure, is critical to reducing your chances of developing dementia.
But also remember that dementia risk isn’t completely in your control. “If you’ve got ... first-degree relatives [like] a parent that develops, say, Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia, you’re at increased risk as well,” Bix said.
If you do have a genetic predisposition to dementia, there are things you can do to stay ahead of the disease. The biggest key is recognizing the signs of its development, Bix noted.
“As we age, there are the so-called ‘senior moments’ that we all occasionally might have, but this is a little bit more,” Bix said.
Early detection of memory changes will help doctors slow down the progression of the disease. These cognition issues may look like forgetting new information, asking the same questions, struggling to do tasks that used to come easy (like making a grocery list), difficulty following a conversation, and more.
Here’s how to identify and limit your anxiety.
Reading an article about the connection between anxiety and dementia certainly isn’t going to make anyone with anxiety any less, well, anxious. However, identifying and reducing the factors contributing to your overall anxiety is necessary, according to Joseé Muldrew, a licensed professional counsellor and founder of The Looking Glass, a private therapy practice in Georgia.
“The first thing I always encourage people to do is actually taking a moment to slow down and reflect the triggers that are showing up,” said Muldrew.
You can do this through journaling, jotting down your feelings in the notes app on your phone, or recording voice memos if you don’t feel like writing, she said.
Ask yourself, “What am I doing right now when I start to notice my anxiety peaking? What thoughts are going through my mind? Is there anything specific that I’m experiencing right before onset?” Muldrew suggested.
“What this does is it really helps you be able to go back and actually evaluate what’s happening and develop different connections as well as established patterns that actually might be emerging,” Muldrew continued.
It can also be helpful to listen to your body, because anxiety often manifests through physical symptoms like rapid heart rate, muscle tension and sweatiness. Muldrew said you can do a body scan in bed in the morning (or wherever you feel calmest and safest) to determine your baseline. Then, do another midday brief body scan to determine if any feelings of anxiety are appearing. That way, you can examine how your environment changed ― for example, are you at work? ― to identify your triggers.
Once you determine what makes you anxious, you can make an effort to limit those things in your life. Maybe you decide that scrolling social media makes you anxious, or skipping your daily walk drives up your anxiety, or having that second cup of coffee makes you feel unsettled.
Muldrew also recommends setting designated five or 10-minute “worry breaks.”
“I can have five minutes, 10 minutes, to get my worry out, to list out or talk out all the things that are bringing me a little bit of anxiety right now,” Muldrew said. “But once these 10 minutes expire, I’m leaving that there. I’ve gotten them out, and now I’m entering back into my day knowing that I can only control the controllables and I’m only going to focus on what’s here right now in the present moment.”
Lastly, don’t expect all of your anxiety to disappear after trying out these strategies once or twice.
“The same way anxiety is something that can be developed over time [and] certain things can exacerbate it, there are certain coping skills that are going to work better for certain moments,” Muldrew said. “And so you really have to allow yourself the time to try different things and try them more than once.”
Just know that working hard to reduce your anxiety is worth it.
“By managing your anxiety in the present, you’re not only caring for yourself in this moment, but you are taking care of your future self, you’re improving your quality of life and you’re lowering your risk for longer-term health implications,” Muldrew said.