When the Body Says No: Understanding the Stress-disease Connection

Psychological influences make a decisive biological contribution to the onset of malignant disease through the interconnections linking the components of the body’s stress apparatus: the nerves, the hormonal glands, the immune system and the brain centres where emotions are perceived and processed.

Many children are conditioned in this manner not because of any intended harm or abuse, but because the parents themselves are too threatened by the anxiety, anger or sadness they sense in their child—

The nervous system is deeply influenced by emotions. In turn, the nervous system is intimately involved in the regulation of immune responses and of inflammation. Neuropeptides, protein molecules secreted by nerve cells, serve to promote inflammation or to inhibit it. Such molecules are found in heavy concentration in the intestines, in the areas m

conceived of stress as a biological process, a wide-ranging set of events in the body, irrespective of cause or of subjective awareness. Stress consists of the internal alterations—visible or not—that occur when the organism perceives a threat to its existence or well-being. While nervous tension may be a component of stress, one can be stressed wi

These biological responses are adaptive in the emergencies for which nature designed them. But

need. It was a way of endearing herself to her father and

“I knew boundaries, but my mother did not. That’s what most of our fights were about—about her inability to recognize where she ended and I began.”

In numerous studies of cancer, the most consistently identified risk factor is the inability to express emotion, particularly the feelings associated with anger. The repression of anger is not an abstract emotional trait that mysteriously leads to disease. It is a major risk factor because it increases physiological stress on the organism. It does

turn, the hormonal apparatus and the emotional centres are interconnected with the immune system and the nervous system. These are not four separate systems, but one super-system that functions as a unit to protect the body from external invasion and from disturbances to the internal physiological condition. It is impossible for any stressful stimu