I’m going to fail my exam. What happens if my company lays off staff and I’m one of them? I’m worried about my health. Are my kids safe?

All of us worry about something sometimes. But how often does the thing we worry about happen — and to the extent imagined?

When we worry, our minds often play out the worst case result for a certain scenario. If I fail this exam, I won’t have a high enough GPA to get into law school, and my entire future is ruined.

While our minds imagine this, our bodies don’t. Cortisol. Adrenaline. The stress hormones are activated in our body as if this ‘worry’ was actually happening.

This ‘fight or flight’ chemical reaction in our bodies serves us when real danger is imminent. But over prolonged periods of time, these raised chemical levels can have a toxic effect on our glands, heart, and nervous system. All this can cause us to age prematurely.

So like Bobby McFerrin told us in 1988, don’t worry, be happy.