Ask yourself this. Is anything worth getting yourself agitated over? Losing your job? Losing your business? Not being able to find a tenant for your house? Not getting the interest rate the bank promised you? Is any of that worth the mental anguish?

Mental anguish is not just mental anguish though. There are physical elements to stress. Ongoing stress can have serious repercussions on your health. It can lead to loss of appetite, loss of sleep, weight gain or weight loss, frequent headaches and high blood pressure.

Sometimes the stress is self-inflicted simply because the person is unable or unwilling to ‘let go’ of things that bother them now or have bothered them in the past. The stress could be related to money or it could be someone or something that is bothering or has bothered them.

As we all know high blood pressure is the most serious consequence of being under constant stress. I’m not a medical expert but I have first-hand experience of extreme hypertension and its consequences if disregarded.

As you know, blood pressure readings can be normal or high. But it’s also important to remember that in reality the normal figure is relative. In other words, what’s normal for one person is not necessarily normal for another and that’s okay. But the higher the numbers get, the more dangerous a territory does the individual begin to enter. That is when most people begin a stringent programme of blood pressure management with the help of a medical professional. Doctors tell me that extremely high BP, if left untreated and becomes chronic, is more difficult to bring under control.

I’m sure you know that having a permanently raised blood pressure can lead to many complications such as an increased risk of blood clots in the brain which in turn can lead to strokes. Strokes can be debilitating, if not deadly. The latter is the worse case scenario. In a bad case scenario, one side of the body is totally paralysed, a condition from which not everyone recovers. I ask again, is all the unnecessary worrying and aggravation spent in fretting over stupid and worthless things actually worth risking your health?

Money is important, yes, but let’s weigh things up, shall we? Your health should be at the top of the list and any money you have, don’t have or want to have should be way down towards the bottom of the list. Again, yes, money is nice to have but it really only becomes important when you need to be treated. However, were you to prioritise yourself and your health above money, then perhaps money would not be so important because you wouldn’t need it for treatment.

Some people get what is known as a wake-up call. Most people who’ve had a heart episode, for example, are more than willing to change their lifestyle which includes their diet and exercise. However, no matter how serious an episode they suffered, not everyone learns from past experience. Even after a serious episode that lands them in hospital they continue to worry about material things.

This is particularly prevalent in people who are on the extreme end of hypertension since many a time our blood pressure is dictated by how we react to situations. Those who have anger issues, are extremely emotional or are constantly agitated about every little thing tend to have very elevated blood pressure readings since the two are interrelated. Sometimes the blood pressure is so high the machine cannot read it and can even return an error message.

Life is precious and a gift from God. To live it in happiness is thanking God for giving you your life. To live life in constant anger, in constant anguish, in constant irritation and not being grateful for what you have been given by God is actually abusing your life and not showing gratitude.

Your life and health is more important than anything else in the world. If you take care of these everything else will take care of itself.