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If you suffer from anxiety on a regular basis, you might be surprised to learn that a common habit you have might be contributing to this issue. Caffeine is an ingredient found in soda, chocolate, and coffee. If you love drinking coffee every morning, the caffeine you are consuming might be causing your anxiety to worsen. Here are three things you should understand about the effects of caffeine on anxiety.

The Effects Of Anxiety On Your Body

Anxiety is something that can occur for no reason or can be triggered by something. It can leave you feeling nervous, jittery, and worried, and it actually affects the way your body works. Anxiety causes adrenaline to flow in your body, and it increases your heart rate and blood pressure. Over time, these effects can damage your heart. Anxiety can also lead to insomnia, lack of motivation, and weakening of the immune system.

Anxiety is not something you should ignore, especially if you feel anxious on a regular basis. In addition, it's also important to realize how drinking coffee (or other beverages that contain caffeine) can make your anxiety worse.

How Caffeine Affects Your Body

When you consume caffeine, it will have a lot of different effects on your body, and some of the effects are the same as those caused by anxiety. Drinking coffee can cause your heart rate and blood pressure to increase because of the stress hormones caffeine causes your body to release. These hormones include cortisol and epinephrine, and both of these are released at a higher rate when you consume coffee. These are the same hormones released during times when you feel anxious.

Caffeine is also considered a stimulant, and this is why drinking coffee can prevent you from sleeping. When you consume coffee, the caffeine in the coffee blocks certain neurotransmitters in your brain. Adenosine is a neurotransmitter that helps you feel tired and relaxed. Consuming caffeine blocks adenosine, and this is the reason you may not be able to sleep if you consume coffee late in the day.

If you are on any medications and consume caffeine, this too might also worsen the anxiety you suffer from. This is primarily because caffeine does not mix well with medications. In fact, there are dozens of different medications with warnings on them about caffeine. These medications may have worsened side-effects if a person takes them and drinks beverages containing caffeine.

Combining Caffeine With Anxiety Is Not A Good Idea

According to experts, mixing caffeine with an anxiety disorder can be extremely risky. Anxiety on its own is a terrible condition to live with, and it has so many negative effects on the body. Adding caffeine to this only worsens the symptoms and effects of anxiety. In other words, your anxiety is likely to worsen simply because caffeine causes the same symptoms of anxiety, and the symptoms are what make you feel nervous and edgy.

You could always try to test this theory yourself by comparing how you feel each day when drinking coffee and without drinking coffee. If you keep a journal about this, you may begin to see some correlations between the caffeine you consume and the anxiety you feel. If you discover that caffeine makes your anxiety worse, you may want to consider eliminating it from your daily routine.

There are a lot of different things that can affect the way you feel and that can trigger your anxiety. If you would like to find out how you can control your anxiety and depression, you should consider visiting a doctor or counseling firm to get professional help so you can feel better. Click on this link for more about this topic.