Most people agree, quitting habits like smoking or eating salt, fat, and sugar are good for your health. It makes sense that reducing toxins in your body will help you live a healthier, longer life, but there may be more affecting your health than too many Twinkies.
Eating toxic foods and bringing chemicals into your body isn’t the only way to become unhealthy. Holding on to activities and situations that you should let go of may be doing equal damage.
Chronic Stress is Bad for Your Physical Health
Failing to quit activities and situations that don’t serve you creates chronic stress. This can cause spikes in hormones, raise your blood pressure, and lower your immunities. You may be surprised to learn that failing to quit may contribute to chronic illnesses or lead to a heart attack or stroke.
What to do about it?
Be honest with yourself about areas of life you may need to do some quitting. Whether it’s a toxic friendship that needs to end or cutting out one or two commitments during the week, only you know what’s causing your brand of chronic stress.
Chronic Stress is Bad for Your Mental Health
Chronic stress can also exacerbate or create mental health problems including, but not limited to, depression, anxiety, and personality disorders. Failing to remove or quit situations causing undue stress can be just as bad as eating a high fat diet and consuming too much alcohol.
What to do about it?
Pay attention to how you feel when you engage with people and participate in activities. If you come away from the experience feeling badly it’s a sign you may need to quit.
Your Physical and Mental Health are Connected
Our minds and bodies are connected. Whatever we experience physically, we experience mentally and vice versa. When you make decisions to quit unhealthy things in your life, you may see an overall increase in your health. You may have more energy, fewer bouts of anxiety or depression, and a leveling off of your heart rate and hormones.
Quitting May be the Healthiest Choice
Many times, people hang on too long and fail to quit out of fear. They don’t want to face judgment or lose ground. These are natural feelings, but they may be causing more harm than you realize. If you are experiencing chronic stress despite eating right, getting plenty of rest and proper exercise, you may discover it’s not your lifestyle that’s the problem. Better health may be one decision to quit away.