Why emotional issues are bound to cause physical problems
In this era, many people seem surprised and shocked that they have physical illnesses and issues while struggling with their emotional and mental health. Our ancestors knew the two were inextricably linked, and yet in the past century that knowledge seems to have been nudged and then shoved aside.
So at some time it seems mental, spiritual and physical health became separated – although of course they are not. Yet, for example, a newspaper or magazine’s health section very rarely connects physical conditions with someone’s emotional state. When I was a medical and health writer I tried writing about this definite link for years, but can count on one hand the amount of times I was commissioned to include even mention of it.
Maybe it is because it’s not usually a short-term consequence. However, it’s clear that living a stressed daily life will at some point lead to physical problems, frequently in this instance to do with the heart or stomach.
Indeed, ask virtually any doctor whether our emotional and physical conditions are linked and it will be a resounding yes. And yet, many people are still surprised, bewildered and shocked to learn this. You only need to look at the mental health support groups on Facebook to see this – where tens of thousands of people are sharing their various physical ailments and seemingly not making the connection.
Thankfully, awareness is growing again that there is this clear and obvious link. A growing number of experts such as physician, author and addiction expert Dr Gabor Maté are currently saying it loud and clear – and explaining how our Western society plays a leading role in this seemingly endless severe rise in mental and physical health problems.
The brain and body connection
Dr Maté’s bestselling book When The Body Says No states how emotional and mental stress is a key cause of physical disease and illnesses. This includes such as autoimmune conditions, heart problems, digestive issues and cancer.
He describes how the brain and body systems that process our emotions are intimately connected to our hormonal network and nervous system as well as to our immune system. That is, our mind and body are “inseparable”.
“Through no conscious will of your own,” says Dr Maté, “and for perfectly understandable reasons that had to do with your own emotional survival and thus were valid at the time, you have developed a personality style that has turned out to be bad for your health in the long run.”
He also talks about the modern Western system’s adverse impact on many people, and how that plays its part in many physical diseases and illnesses. But, as well, numerous mental health conditions including addiction.
“So much of what we call abnormality in this culture is actually normal responses to an abnormal culture. The abnormality does not reside in the pathology of individuals, but in the very culture that drives people into suffering and dysfunction.”
Certainly in my role as a Wellbeing Coach and with my experience of many years, one day at a time, in recovery I can emphatically state that nearly all our problems known today as mental health issues begin in childhood. Consider how the modern Western world – in great many parts of it – now has both parents away from the family home and their children for great periods of time.
Consider that and already you’re seeing a huge part of the problem. All children need to feel loved, validated and valued, have their needs met, be really listened to by a parent who looks them in the eye with gentle love in their own eyes, and who responds kindly with the language of the heart… Every day every child needs this.
Our childhood shapes us
Frequently, what are viewed as somebody’s character traits in adulthood are actually responses to their childhood experiences. A need to always be “helpful”, to always take on another person’s problem as their own, an inability to ever say no – even if all of that means pushing down emotions. Coping with a cracked, broken or shattered childhood shapes our personalities.
Says Dr Maté: “It’s not a conscious choice; it’s more an automatic decision the young self makes to stay afloat in stressful emotional waters. Over time, if those patterns get reinforced and become rigid parts of the personality and remain unexamined, they can have detrimental effects on immune system functioning, even to the point of serious illness.”
How we think and so how we are emotionally has the greatest influence on us – and of course consequently those around us. This was common knowledge among our ancestors from centuries ago.
Look at Shakespeare’s Macbeth where the doctor is called to help Lady Macbeth. The doctor duly arrives and sees what is going on. He tells them it’s not his job to fix Lady Macbeth because her condition is due to her own thinking and subsequent behaviour – and so it needs and really only can be fixed by herself, from within. He says: “More needs she the divine than the physician.”
Placebo and nocebo
Today many people struggling emotionally have found the proven success of such as the Twelve Steps, which awakens people’s strong spiritual sense. In fact, having personally seen the success of this astounding recovery programme and method for living on myself and countless others over many years now – for all emotional and mental health conditions, not just addictions – I have come to realise that what are generally known as mental health issues today would be more accurately called spiritual sicknesses.
This knowing of this immense potency of our mind over matter is also revealed in the religious books. For instance, in the Hindu book the Bhagavad Gita it states: “You are what you believe in. You become that which you believe you can become.” While in the Bible it says: “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he…”
Stoic philosopher Epictetus (c.55–c.135 ad) said: “You become what you give your attention to.” More recently, self-help author and motivational speaker Dr Wayne Dyer put it: “You’ll see it when you believe it.”
So how we think undoubtedly affects how we are emotionally – and therefore who we are. This alters us physically, for the better or the worse.
Just as there is the placebo effect that everyone knows about, there is its opposite: the nocebo effect. This figures – as if we can make ourselves well by believing we are taking something that is getting us well, sometimes from serious illness, we must also be able to make ourselves unwell with the power of our thinking and the feelings it creates.
“Placebo” comes from Latin meaning “I shall be acceptable or pleasing”; “Nocebo” is from Latin meaning “I shall cause harm”.
So, we always need to remember that anything we focus on grows – whether that is good or bad, negative or positive…
What physical issues can mental health problems lead to?
Mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression can lead to lots of physical symptoms, including:
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Weakened immune system
- Muscle tension
- Sight problems
- Bloating
- Shakes & tremor
- Headaches
- Migraine
- Obesity
- Sweating
- Hair loss
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Diarrhoea
- Palpitations
- Increased sensitivity to pain
- Lethargy
- High blood pressure
- Heart problems
- General aches & pains
- Fatigue
- Headaches
- Menstrual irregularities
- Erectile problems
- Dizziness
- Breathing issues
- Psoriasis & various other skin problems
- Stomach pain
- Muscle soreness
- Insomnia & other sleep issues (sleeping too little or too much, disturbed sleep)
Physical illnesses are a signpost
Dr Maté believes the key purpose of many illnesses is to help enable people to develop the ability to say no to excessive stresses in their life. If we do not it is our body that ends up being forced to say it for us – in the form of various physical illnesses.
“My belief is that diseases like cancer, ALS [amyotrophic lateral sclerosis], multiple sclerosis and so on, that cause so much suffering, all come along to teach something,” Dr Maté says. “If the lesson is learned, with compassion for oneself, then the ‘teacher’ has done its job and can then take a hike.
“That’s not a guarantee, but I’ve seen many examples of people who’ve taken on their illnesses in this way and either survived or far outlived what medical science would have predicted, or at least greatly improved their own quality of life while alive. Research literature confirms this.
“If someone comes to a doctor with rheumatoid arthritis it’s not enough they get prescribed an anti-inflammatory. They should also be engaged in a conversation about the life stresses that triggered the episode of inflammation, as invariably turns out to be the case.”
It sometimes seems to take a tragedy or real difficulties for people to realise – in fact be reminded, because we all know deep down – what is truly important in life. For many people this is such as when someone they love passes away.
The most important things in life…
It reminds us with stark clarity, as if screaming at us, that the most important things in life are not things at all.
So we need to consider if a physical illness has developed to bring us back to our true selves. Over the years I have seen many people get into recovery – seeking and gaining a positive life transformation – after serious illness or loss of someone they love or their own major health scare.
We really are not here on this planet to run around under continual stress and hardly see our partner, children, friends and home. That just makes no sense, and yet it’s how people in the Western world increasingly exist.
My loving suggestion is not to wait until something happens. Make any changes that are needed now.
