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The Link Between Chronic Stress and Illness
An exploration into how chronic stress contributes to the development of physical illness, including cancer and autoimmune diseases.
Selen Yesilada
July 30, 2024 • ⏱ 9 minutes
Disclaimer: Please note that I’m not a medical professional. I’m a fellow human with a chronic disease, trying to learn about and make sense of my experience and those of others. Writing on this topic is my attempt to deepen my learnings and develop a well-rounded understanding. Please do your own research when relating this exploration to your experiences.
Let’s first explore the difference between acute and chronic stress.
What is acute stress?
You’re waiting to cross the street at the traffic lights. As soon as the red light blinks for the cars, you take your first steps across, only to realize that one car hasn’t reduced its speed. You get scared, your body’s stress apparatus is activated, blood flows to your muscles, and you jump back. However, you realize the car has stopped exactly where it was supposed to. You feel relieved, and very soon, you are no longer stressed.
This is acute stress. It’s the body’s immediate reaction to a perceived threat. It aims to ensure the survival of the organism, and once the threat is gone, it subsides, and the organism returns to balance.
What is chronic stress?
You believe you’re responsible for making others feel good. You take on tasks to not offend others even though you’re already exhausted. You engage in activities to please people, while alone time is what you need the most. You don’t express negative emotions so you don’t upset or make anyone uncomfortable. You may be struggling with chronic headaches, back pain, or digestive issues, but anyway, you make others feel good, and that’s what is important.
With stressors remaining present, either from failure to recognize or resolve them, the body’s stress mechanisms stay active; that is, chronic stress. For example, the continuous neglect of personal needs and wants as in the narrative above. If left unrelieved, chronic stress can contribute to the progression of chronic pain, including chronic headaches, back pain, or digestive issues, and physical illnesses, including heart attack, stroke, autoimmune diseases, and cancer.
That being said...
Let's clear one possible misinterpretation out of the way
Stress does not cause illness by itself, but it contributes to an internal environment that promotes the progression of illness. “If you get a disease, a whole series of things had to have gone wrong,” says Steve Cole, professor of Medicine, Psychiatry and Behavioral Science in the UCLA School of Medicine.
For example, according to researcher and clinician, Alessio Fasano, three things should be at work to develop an autoimmune disease:
· A genetic predisposition—not predetermination as genetic destiny, but a predisposition as carrying genetic potential which may or may not be expressed,
· An environmental trigger, including stress-inducing external pressures and/or internal factors,
· A degree of intestinal permeability, also known as leaky gut.
How do emotions impact the physical body?
Given that emotions are electrical, chemical, and hormonal charges of the human nervous system, they affect the entire organism. Put simply, in the words of Gabor Maté, “Emotions affect nerves and vice versa; nerves act on hormones; hormones on the immune system; the immune system on the brain; the brain on the gut; the gut on the brain; and all of these act on the heart, and vice versa.” Briefly, the body is not separate from the mind, as the mind is not separate from the body.
How does stress translate into physical illness?
Narrowed Blood Vessels
Stress hormones cause the blood vessels in the gut and the brain to constrict. This way the blood is pushed to the outer extremities, like the arms and legs, so the body is prepared to take action—fight or flee. As the blood vessels narrow, blood pressure rises, and so may blood clotting, which increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes. On the other hand, persistent narrow blood vessels make the body vulnerable to the development of vascular diseases.
Suppressed Immune System
When the organism is in balance, the immune system is responsible for eliminating potentially malignant cells, which are the natural by-products of cell division in the body. Stress, on the other hand, undermines this protective capacity of the immune system, since, while under stress, energy must be conserved to take necessary action. With the immune system remaining suppressed, as in the state of chronic stress, it becomes easier for malignant tumor cells to survive and grow, potentially promoting the development of cancer.
Increased Inflammation
Inflammation is one of the protective measures the organism takes to protect itself from internal threats. One of the ways stress acts as a booster of inflammation in the body is by putting the organism in a hypervigilant state. Such a state encourages the organism to ‘overreact,’ possibly leading to destructive inflammation in the body—depending on where one’s particular vulnerabilities reside.
If the nervous system gets affected most, the disease may express itself as multiple sclerosis; if the gut, celiac disease or inflammatory bowel syndrome; if the joint and connective tissues, systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis or scleroderma; if the skin, psoriasis or autoimmune eczema; if the pancreas, type 1 diabetes; if the lungs, pulmonary fibrosis; if the brain, might be Alzheimer’s.
“Virtually all autoimmune diseases are characterized by inflammation of the afflicted tissues, organs, and the body parts—which explains why frontline medical measures often begin with anti-inflammatory drugs,” writes Gabor Maté in his book The Myth of Normal.
Dr. Steve Cole describes inflammation as “kind of a fertilizer for the development of illness,” and he adds, “We’ve discovered that when people feel threatened, insecure—especially over an extended period of time,” read chronic stress, “our bodies are programmed to turn on inflammatory genes.”
One thing you can start doing today to contribute to your healing
Various research studies have consistently shown that mindfulness practices are effective in healing chronic diseases. They do so by reducing inflammation, reprogramming epigenetic functioning, promoting the repair of telomeres, reducing stress hormone levels, and encouraging the development of healthier brain circuits. The mindfulness practices include various forms of meditation, yoga nidra—also known as ‘body scan,’ yoga asana, and practices of mindful breathing, walking, and eating. Start your exploration of mindfulness practices today. Over time, you’ll find what you enjoy the most and welcome it into your daily life with ease.
Last but not least...
“It's not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it," writes Hans Selye, pioneering endocrinologist known for his work on stress and its effects on the human body.
When we suppress the feelings of stress, sadness, or anger for long periods of time, we aren’t doing our bodies any favors. We may divorce our thinking from the unpleasant by engaging in avoidance or ignorance, but by doing so, we do not free our bodies from physiological processes that can negatively affect our mental and physical well-being.
That’s why it’s important to tune into our bodies, connect with our breathing, and get curious about what’s happening within. We need to do our part and learn to listen to our bodies because they do communicate with us, whether through emotions, pain, or physical illness.
Yoga, Meditation & Further Readings
Yoga & Meditation on YouTube
🌵 25-Min Bedtime Yoga to Relieve Stress, Calm the Mind, & Stretch the Body
🌵 45-Min Bedtime Yin Yoga for Relaxing & Empowering Reset
🌵 20-Min Meditation for People with Chronic Illness
Further Readings
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