By Dr. A. Jerry Simon M.D
August 23 2026 | Health
Just yesterday I watched a video clip of little boy in an East Asian country, six years old, literally falling dead in front of his teacher. Apparently, his teacher was being punitive regarding some assignment the student was given and in utter fear the boy’s heart stopped and he collapsed and died.
I do not know all the details in that case. For example, what was his prior history with that teacher, his home and did he have an underlying condition. But it is certainly clear that fear and anxiety can literally cause our heart to fail and it can do it in various ways.
Anxiety affects our sleep and sleep – wake patterns. This in turn can predispose us to chronic illnesses such as diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. This is because the change in sleep – wake pattern invariable affects our eating pattern and nutrition, our physical activity and exercise pattern and hence our overall quality of health. It also compounds our mental health as the very tools we need to fight anxiety are diminished.
As our physical and mental health decline our body cells and tissues also suffer more. The natural replenishment of cells, a necessary part of health and wellbeing, occurs less efficiently. This then affects greatly our immune system, making it weaker and less responsive. We are now more vulnerable to benign conditions, such as cold and flus, that our bodies normally would fight off with relative ease.
Further, our personal hygiene and self care, human-interactions and general outlook on life (hope) often gets worst as anxiety gets worst. This often leads to isolation, or us seeking the “wrong crowd” and then we make bad social decisions.
But the biggest danger is probably to our heart – our cardiovascular system. About 3000 years ago, King Solomon told us that a merry heart does good like medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones (blood production primarily takes places in our bone marrow). Jesus Christ further tells us in these perilous times, characterised by high anxiety, men’s heart will fail because of fear. Either way, the message is clear, anxiety is physically detrimental to us.
In the case of chronic anxiety, it destroys our health and cardiovascular system in a relatively slow but continuous manner and eventually our heart fails under the strain of greater mental and physical pressure. However, acute high anxiety and situations of panic, can cause our hearts to beat erratically and our blood vessels can quickly constrict increasing our blood pressure to astronomical levels. The sum total of that chaotic situation is that the blood flow to essential organs – heart and brain is drastically reduced and we could faint, become unconscious, breathing stops and death ensues without quick appropriate attention.
Now this may sound more like a religious article than a health one, but the antidote to anxiety and fear is putting our ultimate trust in God. In these perilous times, man in his own strength has little solution. Christ over 2000 years identified that anxiety would cause more cardiac arrest and by extension stroke. Just as importantly, he gave us the solution: when we cast out burdens on him he lifts it for us.