Mental disorders are now becoming prevalent illnesses. More than 1 billion people globally were affected by mental and addictive disorders in 2016, which caused 7% of all global burden of disease (Rehm & Shield, 2019). Among those mental disorders, anxiety disorders and depression rank at the top. GAD is the most common anxiety disorder form in primary care, and the burden caused by GAD is severe in terms of decreased work productivity and increased health care utilization. The present study pivoted around GAD, studying the intersection between motivational arousal, language, and sympathetic activation. A Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) was designed and undertaken. The findings were satisfactory: Different arousal manipulation led to different language patterns of students. For example, negative (avoidance) arousal triggered fatigue-related words use. GAD inhibited motivational arousal effect on language, which extended the previous study that GAD people have ’diminished physiological flexibility’. Furthermore, sympathetic activation was observed during arousal manipulation, and the variability of Heart Rate (HR) and Heart Rate Variability (HRV) was significantly affected. Lastly, the ’diminished physiological flexibility’ of GAD people was also shown in the present study: GAD students experienced little change in Electrodermal Activity (EDA), HR, and HRV under motivational arousal manipulation ... Read more