4 Common Health Problems Caused By Low Self-Esteem

We all know that low self-esteem destroys your belief in yourself. It deceives you into believing that you are a worthless loser, leading you to think that you don't deserve love and happiness and are inferior to others. There's an unknown fact, which is that low self-esteem also contradicts your health.

It tips off your emotional balance and mental health and harms your body. Yet, we often need to catch up on self-care. It's a forgotten element at the bottom of an endless list of tasks, and we may eventually get to it if we find the time. How can low self-esteem seriously affect your health if you ignore it?

The vicious circle of low self-esteem:

Low self-esteem affects your health because it changes your behavior. When you suffer from low self-esteem, you see yourself as insignificant and useless, and you think you can't deal with the threats, problems, and obstacles that life throws your way. However, you try to control every aspect of your life and are terrified that your life will fall apart if you're not alert.

You think you're worthless and unloved, so you seek perfection to compensate for your weakness and incompetence, and exhaust yourself trying to please everyone until you gain their acceptance. However, you still suffer from criticism, rejection, and disappointment, which fosters your belief that you're not good enough. So, you work harder, sacrifice more, feel inferior, and feel trapped in an endless vicious cycle of feeling worthless and good for nothing. This vicious circle causes you stress, panic, and fear.

This pressure is tremendous. It tears your mind, erodes your body and your immunity, and prevents you from resting and relaxing. The result is sickness and pain. Behaviors, beliefs, and thinking patterns resulting from a vicious cycle of low self-esteem will further exacerbate diseases. In this article, we will focus on 4 health problems that can result entirely from lack of self-esteem, which means that they can be addressed once the problems of lack of self-esteem are addressed.

4 health conditions that can be improved by boosting your confidence:

1. Anxiety:

Past traumas, excessive stress, mental health issues, and even poor diet can cause anxiety. But one of the main causes of generalized anxiety disorder is the low self-esteem. When you experience low self-esteem, you believe you're weak and not worthy of happiness, so you constantly expect a disaster, fear the future, and feel you do not deserve people's love and respect. Therefore, you're under constant pressure to outperform, impress, and achieve perfection.

At the same time, you don't trust your abilities, always feel uncomfortable, and you almost expect people to betray you and give up on you. You're scared that others won't support you. Therefore, you suffer from making mistakes and worry that others may hate or criticize you. You don't believe in yourself and your ability to deal with life, so you doubt your decisions, fear the potential consequences, and are paralyzed by fear of change.

2. Exhaustion:

Exhaustion develops slowly, and out of the blue, you find yourself dealing with a full physical and emotional breakdown that takes months or even years to recover. It can result from excessive workload, understaffing, and unrealistic high expectations, but at its roots, it's always the result of low self-esteem. You deeply believe that you're worthless unless others recognize your achievements, and you need to justify your existence by working harder than anyone else.

You're doing all you can to be what others expect and can only accept yourself if you're the ideal partner, employee, and housekeeper. Thus, you work all the time, no longer allowing yourself the time to rest and devote your life to winning the approval of others with continuous hard work and self-sacrifice to feel appreciated.

The problem is that every failure, criticism, and rejection will destroy the passing sense of others' approval. Thus, the vicious cycle repeats itself for others' approval. You become hard on yourself, work despite the pain and exhaustion, and sacrifice your health in seeking approval and recognition of your value.

3. Insomnia:

Insomnia results from high stress levels, and an unhealthy sleep environment or lifestyle, such as heavy meals or drinking caffeine before bedtime. However, there's another common cause of insomnia, which is low self-esteem. If you're low on self-esteem, you doubt yourself and your abilities, and life seems like a random series of coincidences you can't control. So, you stay awake at night, afraid of an unpredictable future, worrying about what others think of you, and haunted by the horrific visions of threats, disasters, and failure, all because you believe that you're not good enough to deserve the best, and that you're not strong enough to deal with life and to find your own happiness. All because deep down, you believe that you're worthless.

4. Lower-Back Pain:

Injuries can cause lower-back pain, slipped discs, unstable lifestyle, or excessive weight, but it's also caused by bad posture. This can result from a lack of self-esteem, as your self-esteem is manifested in your body, the center of your sense of strength and independence. When your heart is strong, your entire spine is upright supporting your upper body's weight equally.

If you're low on self-esteem and you self-doubt, your body weakens, your shoulders start to slouch forward, and your abdomen protrudes. Without a strong body, your spine is forced to form an S-shape.

This misalignment puts tremendous pressure on the spine which is now the only part responsible for the tremendous burden of the upper body. This results in permanent tension and pain in the lower back, and intense discomfort when standing for a long time, all due to lack of self-esteem.

How to break this vicious cycle and heal?

Our industrial societies focus on competition, materialism, appearance, prestige, power, achievement, beauty, and fame. We learn that our value stems from without. That is, our bank account balance, success level, popularity, or benefit to society, and you need to meet the criteria to have value. If you work hard and achieve greatness, you gain value. If you fail or make a mistake, you lose your value, or at least this is what we grew up with.

However, this is a huge and catastrophic misunderstanding because the truth is that you deserve to feel completely confident in yourself, just like everyone else on this Earth. Nothing different can give you value and a goal that goes beyond the limitless value that you already have.

Nothing you do will change anything related to your value, be it a mistake, accomplishment, success or failure. It doesn't depend on your actions, rather it's related to your presence. Others’ perspectives of you and their criticism, rejection, and abandonment can never diminish your value. Once you realize this, you can reclaim your life, pursue your dreams, find happiness, be yourself and heal because you no longer need to sacrifice your time, energy, and health to earn value. You'll be free.