Psychological stress hurts your health
Stress for Success
November 6, 2012
Our largely science-based society tends to underplay the mind/body connection. Some research confirms the power of a positive attitude on health while other research disputes it. So, do your thoughts and feelings impact your health, or not?
Having studied the stress response for years, I assume there must be a strong connection between your psychological states, like chronic anger, your stress level, and your body’s ability or inability to defend against illness and disease development.
Recently, several studies have confirmed the importance of managing stress well for those fighting illness.
MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Lorenzo Cohen, professor of general oncology and director of the Integrative Medicine Program at the University of Texas, found that depression among patients with late-stage renal cell carcinoma was associated with an increased risk of death. His study was published in the journal PLOS ONE in August 2012.
The chief suspect in his study was cortisol, the stress hormone I’ve written so much about for years, and inflammatory pathways.
“This study is the next step in the process of understanding that emotional factors have an impact on biology, which can … influence outcomes in cancer,” says Cohen.
Cortisol is the adrenal gland produced hormone that’s triggered in response to stress and helps regulate the body’s inflammatory response. Normal cortisol levels should be higher in the morning then decrease throughout the day. But for patients experiencing chronic stress or depression, cortisol levels can remain higher throughout the day and night.
In Cohen’s study, patients with sustained higher cortisol levels had an increased risk of mortality. Through gene profiles, he documented the connection between the patient’s psychological state and survival time, which may stem from a “dysregulation in inflammatory biology.”
Also, a team of Carnegie Mellon University researchers led by Sheldon Cohen (unrelated to Lorenzo Cohen), professor of psychology and director of the Laboratory for the Study of Stress, Immunity and Disease, found that chronic stress was associated with the “body losing its ability to regulate its inflammatory response.” The researchers found that over an extended period of chronic stress, body tissue adapts to cortisol and loses its effectiveness in regulating inflammation.
“Inflammation is healthy when triggered in an attempt to fight infection,” says Lorenzo Cohen, “but chronic inflammation can advance the development and progression of many illnesses, including heart disease, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, depression, and cancer.”
One of the problems with this type of research is that causation between psychological stress and cancer survival is notoriously hard to establish: it would be unethical to stress cancer patients in order to monitor their stress response, after all. But expanding research of breast, ovarian and other cancers is strengthening the link between psychological stress and disease.
Cancer patients certainly need to manage the significant stress that accompanies this difficult disease by making stress management a vital part of cancer treatment, if not all inflammatory diseases. You could choose from psychiatric medication, cognitive-behavioral therapy, meditation, yoga, tai chi, or guided imagery, all of which have been shown to be effective in managing stress.
Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S. is an international speaker and a Stress and Wellness Coach. Order her book, Let Your Body Win: Stress Management Plain & Simple, at http://www.letyourbodywin.com/bookstore.html. Email her to request she speak to your organization at jferg8@aol.com.
