ABSTRACT
Until recently the concept of worry was mainly studied within the context of test anxiety and anxiety disorders. Worry plays a role in nearly all anxiety disorders and is a core characteristic of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Even in the area of anxiety, it was not until the 1980s that the potential etiological importance of the concept became recognized and systematically investigated (see Davey & Tallis, 1994). In this contribution, we will attempt to show that worry may play a much broader role in psychological and somatic health. We will discuss evidence of a wide range of possible long-term health consequences of worry, reaching from anxiety disorders and medically unexplained somatic complaints towards pathophysiological conditions such as cardiovascular disease (CVD). Furthermore, the diverse processes and mechanisms underlying these consequences will be outlined, including some currently known physiological and neurovisceral concomitants of worry. The chapter starts with some theoretical considerations of the definition and nature of worry and related concepts such as rumination. Next we will discuss their etiological role in anxiety, unexplained somatic complaints, and somatic disease, respectively.
