It is well known that losing your job ranks as one of life's greatest stressors. However, it turns out that the constant fear of losing your job can actually damage your mental and physical health even more.
Because of the unrelenting nature of the stress -- a constant worry rather than a one-time event like being fired -- chronic job insecurity is linked more strongly to depression and health problems than actual job loss.
The constant stress causes a variety of problems generally starting with sleeplessness, which is itself linked to yet more health problems. Considering the increasing trend toward companies downsizing and merging, this could have worrisome health implications for American workers.
Emotions are very complicated and fragile things. When channeled positively, they can do wonderful things for your health. Unfortunately, many of you are stuck in recurring negative emotions, which can be quite harmful to your mind and body.
Few pursuits in life offer more potential for risk and reward than your job. Although it's a fact unemployment hurts your health -- just like a death or divorce can -- it's not surprising that the risk of losing your job can be much more damaging.
One of the amazing things about life is that what you focus your intention on you tend to manifest in your life. So if you are focused on being afraid of losing your job, it will tend to be a self-fullfilling prophecy.
The converse of focusing on what you want, to be happy in your current or new job, is the goal and will tend to produce that in your life.
You will want to avoid recurring feelings of insecurity, which tend to fuel chronic and toxic stress that can eventually damage your immune system and open the floodgates to serious illness. And, if you do nothing to allow your body to address the real problem -- handling the stress of uncertainty better -- your brain may be affected too.
Your best bet is to learn how handle the stress in a healthy way. Before you take the easy solution of choosing a band-aid drug or an antidepressant, which not only may be potentially toxic but will not address the cause, consider implementing the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). EFT is one of the most effective energy psychology tools available to treat stress and depression.
If you have serious struggles with the issue you will want to consider consulting with a professional, as using any technique to treat yourself with a serious illness could be problematic; it would be best to consult with a trained professional.
Gary Craig has a list of EFT Practitioner Referrals from the United States and the world. Many of these therapists even offer a free 15-minute phone session in which you can ask them questions to see if you connect.