Can emotional stress cause illness or premature death?

Emotional stress causes the “fight-or-flight” response, in which your body goes through a series of physiological changes that prepare you to fight or run. Your pupils dilate so you can see better, your muscles contract to fortify your “body armor” in case you have to go into combat, your heart rate and blood pressure increase to provide you more energy, and your arteries constrict and your blood clots faster to stop bleeding more quickly in case you’re injured in battle.

If stresses become chronic, as they often do in modern life, the same mechanisms that are supposed to protect us may lead to illness and even premature death.

For example, when your muscles are chronically contracted, over time this may cause back pain and muscle dysfunction. Chronic stress may cause the arteries in your heart to constrict and your blood to clot too vigorously, leading to a heart attack or stroke.

Your parasympathetic nervous system has the opposite effects. Taking a deep breath when you’re feeling stressed helps break the stress cycle and rebalance your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, calming you down. Even when you can’t control a situation, you can always direct your breathing and thus help change your reaction to those circumstances.

Find out more about this book: The Spectrum: A Scientifically Proven Program to Feel Better, Live Longer,...

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