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Emotions and Health: The Mind-Body Connection

Doctors have pondered the connection between mental and physical health for centuries. Until the 1800s, most believed that emotions were linked to disease and advised patients to visit spas or seaside resorts when they were ill. Gradually, emotions lost favor as other causes of illness, such as bacteria or toxins, emerged, and new treatments such as antibiotics cured illness after illness.

More recently, scientists have speculated that even behavioral disorders, such as autism, have a biological basis. At the same time, they have been rediscovering the links between stress and health. Today, people accept that there is a powerful mind-body connection through which emotional, mental, social, spiritual, and behavioral factors can directly affect health.

Mind-body medicine focuses on treatments that may promote health, including relaxation, hypnosis, visual imagery, meditation, yoga, and biofeedback. Over the past 20 years, mind-body medicine has provided evidence that psychological factors can play a major role in such illnesses as heart disease, and that mind-body techniques can aid in their treatment. Clinical trials have indicated mind-body therapies to be helpful in managing arthritis and other chronic pain conditions. There is also evidence they can help to improve psychological functioning and quality of life and may help to ease symptoms of disease.

Stress and Your Brain

Researchers have long wondered why some people are resilient to stress while others aren't. A study involving mice may have brought them a step closer to the answer. Dr. Eric J. Nestler of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center led a research team investigating the vulnerability of mice to stress after social defeat. When mice are put in cages with bigger, more aggressive mice, some still avoid social interactions with other mice even a month later—a sign that the stress has overwhelmed them. Some, however, adapt and continue to interact with others. The differences between these groups gave Nestler and his team the opportunity to examine the biology behind stress resilience. Their research was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

The researchers found that the mice that do not recover from stress have higher rates of nerve cell electrical activity in the cells that make dopamine. Dopamine is a chemical that helps transmit nerve impulses. More nerve cell electrical activity caused the subject mice to make more of a brain-derived neurotrophic factor protein (BDNF), which has been linked to a weakness to stress.

"The fact that we could increase these animals' ability to adapt to stress by blocking BDNF and its signals means that it may be possible to develop compounds that improve our own resilience to stress. This is a great opportunity to explore how to increase resistance in situations that might otherwise result in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), for example," said Dr. Nestler.

Can prolonged stress affect whether breast cancer returns?

Recently, the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) funded a study of 94 women whose breast cancer had spread (metastatic) or returned (recurrent). Researchers asked them whether they had ever experienced stressful or traumatic life events. The categories ranged from traumatic stress to some stress to no significant stress. According to David Spiegel, MD, one of the study's authors and a faculty member at the Stanford University School of Medicine, there were marked differences.

"Comparisons revealed a significantly longer disease-free interval among women reporting no traumatic or stressful life events," says Dr. Spiegel." A history of traumatic events early in life can have many physical and emotional effects, including changing the hormonal stress response system."

However, Dr. Spiegel says there is good news. "Our research has shown that people do better in the aftermath of traumatic stress if they deal with it directly. Facing, rather than fleeing it, is important. We have conducted support groups for more than 30 years and found that dealing with traumatic and very stressful experiences is much healthier. In other words, don't suppress your emotions."

Complementary and Alternative Approaches to Health

Over the past few years, many Americans have heard about complementary and alternative medicine, which is called CAM. In fact, more than one third of American adults (36 percent) use some form of CAM, notes Catherine Stoney, PhD, a program officer with the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). The NCCAM is the federal government's lead agency for scientific research on complementary and alternative medicine, and a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Basically, CAM is composed of medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not now considered to be part of normal medicine. "Complementary medicine is used together with conventional medicine," says Dr. Stoney, "and alternative medicine is used in place of conventional medicine."

Do you have questions about CAM? Talk to your doctor.

For your health, it is important to inform your medical provider about any CAM you take. This is to assure they do not interact negatively with any prescription or over-the-counter (OTC) drugs you already may be taking.