Resource Library

By Vivian Sudhalter, healthAtoZ writer

Someone cuts you off on the road. Your boss pressures you. That's stress. You know what it is, but did you know that stress may bring you one step closer to a serious illness?

For years, many people have suspected that stress can make you physically sick. Now, scientific research is proving the "how" and "why" of the mind/body connection and its effect on your health.

Research has shown that stress can affect everything from your blood pressure and cholesterol levels to the rate at which you heal. Even your immune system reacts to the stresses in your life and, equally important, to the ways in which you respond to them.

Some experts believe that it is uncontrollable stress that lowers our resistance. While there are countless aspects of life over which we have little control, experts say there are also ways we can "harden" ourselves to stress.

"Stress is part of life, part of being human, but that does not mean that we have to be victims in the face of large forces in our lives," says Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., director of the Stress Reduction Clinic of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center and associate professor in the department of medicine.

Stress triggers and hormones

Esther Sternberg, M.D., who directs National Institutes of Health research on brain hormones (including those released in stress) and disease, has written a book about the connection between the two. Sternberg, author of The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions, says that stressful events trigger the release of a cascade of hormones and chemicals that affect your heart rate, your ability to concentrate and other functions.

For our ancestors millions of years ago, this bath of hormones and neuropeptides, which act as chemical messengers in the brain, was a lifesaver. It allowed them take advantage of heightened physical responses that enabled them to overcome or escape danger. In today's world, neither fight nor flight may be an appropriate response.

The same molecules that can mobilize you for the short-term can wear you down if the stress is too potent, too long-lived or too uncontrolled. Research has found under these circumstances, stress can lead to conditions including:

• Headaches
• Viral infections
• Heart disease, high cholesterol and arterial disorders
• Digestive disorders
• Asthma and allergies
• Cancer
• Adult-onset diabetes
• Memory impairment

According to the Occupational Stress Research Institute, stress costs U.S. industry some $150 billion a year.

The immediate effects of stress are usually temporary and vary in severity from person to person. But over time, they can damage your heart, arteries, brain, kidneys and eyes. What's more, scientific studies now prove that stress can suppress your immune system, making you more likely to "catch" cold or contract more serious diseases.

Some stressors are external, such as family, school, finances or work. Others are internal, such as perceived obligations and self-criticism. While external demands cannot always be modified, experts say we can change our internal demands by examining the pressures we put upon ourselves.

Handling stress better

"A tremendous amount of stress is generated by our own attempts to control our external environment so that it will reflect a positive sense of self," says Dijana Winter, a New York psychotherapist. "We use the world around us to confirm or negate our self-image. Often, what we attempt to control is our interpretation of external circumstances, not an objective fact, and we need to re-examine the beliefs we hold about ourselves."

Studies suggest that people who do not get sick when they are subjected to stress share these personality traits, the "Three C's":

• Control
• Commitment
• Challenge

But what if you feel helpless, lack commitment and are unchallenged? What can you do?

Here are some ideas for hardening yourself to stress and bringing the "Three C's" into your life:

• Stress reduction programs
• Job redesign
• Physical therapies (massage, aromatherapy)
• Meditation and visualization
• Movement therapies (yoga, t'ai chi)
• Talking therapies (counseling, psychotherapy)
• Expression therapies (art, music, dance)
• Energy therapies (Reiki, polarity, acupuncture)
• Exercise
• Diet and supplementation

External Resources: Jon Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind To Face Stress, Pain, and Illness (Delta, 1991) Centers for Disease Control; National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Occupational Stress Research Institute Esther Sternberg, The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions (W.H. Freeman and Co., 2000)

This article was published on 2001-06-21
This article was reviewed on 2003-02-03