\You know that buzzing feeling in your chest that kicks in around 3 p.m.? The one that says you’re behind on everything, everyone’s disappointed in you and your body should probably be somewhere else doing something better right now? That’s not just a rough day. That’s your nervous system waving a white flag. And unfortunately, a lot of us are too burned out to notice.
Anxiety isn’t niche anymore. It’s the background noise of modern adulthood. The National Institute of Mental Health reports that nearly one in three people between 18 and 25 have experienced an anxiety disorder in the past year. That’s not just a blip. That’s a collective spiritual-psychological identity crisis, and it’s showing up in our bodies.
When your body perceives a threat — like an angry email or an unread group chat — your amygdala sends up a flare. Cortisol floods your system. Your heart rate spikes. Your stomach flips. Your brain exits the chat. This is your nervous system doing exactly what God designed it to do: keep you alive.
The problem is, we’re activating that emergency response constantly — for notifications, for performance reviews, for existential dread at 2 a.m. The result? Burnout, insomnia, digestive issues, panic attacks that hit in Trader Joe’s. Your system never gets to reset. You live in fight-or-flight, but you’re not fighting lions — you’re answering Slack messages.
Here’s where this gets interesting. Research shows that people with an internalized religious orientation — meaning their faith isn’t just a label, but something woven into their daily life — report lower levels of anxiety and depression. One 2023 study published in Frontiers in Psychology found that regular spiritual practices like prayer, meditation or Scripture reading correlate with better emotional regulation and a stronger sense of purpose. Translation? People who take their faith seriously tend to have stronger coping skills and a more grounded sense of self when life punches them in the face.
But before anyone turns this into a WWJD cure-all: faith isn’t the antidote to anxiety. It’s part of a larger equation. Yes, spirituality can lower your stress levels. But that doesn’t mean you should ghost your therapist or toss your Lexapro in the trash.
Christian culture has had a complicated relationship with mental health. For years, many churches treated anxiety like a faith failure. If you were anxious, you just needed to “trust God more.” Cue the guilt spiral.
Thankfully, that narrative is slowly shifting. More pastors, authors and theologians are publicly advocating for a both/and approach — honoring faith and seeking help. The American Psychological Association now encourages therapists to incorporate a client’s religious beliefs into treatment, because ignoring someone’s spirituality can actually hinder healing.
Jesus never shamed people for being unwell. He met them in their pain, and He often told them to go do something: wash in the river, see the priest, stop isolating. In today’s world, that might sound like: take your meds, go to therapy, stop doomscrolling until 1 a.m.
What if your chronic tension, your shallow breathing, your constant edge-of-tears feeling isn’t weakness — it’s your body asking for restoration? Psalm 23 doesn’t say, “He pushes me to grind harder.” It says, “He makes me lie down.”
God built you with a nervous system — not so you could destroy it with hustle, but so you could use it to connect, feel, create and rest. Ignoring the signals doesn’t make you stronger. It makes you numb. And that’s not spiritual maturity. That’s spiritual disconnection.
You are not a machine. Stop expecting yourself to be productive 100 percent of the time. That’s capitalism talking, not Jesus. If your thoughts feel too loud, that’s not a failure. That’s a sign. Book the appointment. Whether it’s prayer, breathwork or just walking without your phone, give your body some quiet. Jesus wept. You can too. Needing help doesn’t mean you’re spiritually weak. It means you’re human. Which, spoiler: is exactly who God came for.
The Gospel isn’t just for your sin. It’s for your stress. For your panic. For your trauma. Jesus didn’t just come to make you good — He came to make you whole. So if your body’s screaming, “This isn’t sustainable,” maybe that’s sacred information. Maybe faith isn’t what fixes you. Maybe it’s what keeps you going while you do the work.
