Filed under: Advice, Health, Healthy Eating
Some people seem to have issues with the idea that emotions are associated with disease. Admittedly, the realm of emotional healing tends to bring to mind New Agey weirdos wielding crystals rather than hard science, but there is no denying that emotions have very real, material effects on the body and science is backing it up.
What we tend to feel as emotions are actually the effect of chemical cascades that visit cells in the body, signaling them to cause different responses. These chemical messengers have physical effects on the cells telling them to produce certain substances, retain vitamins or minerals or even turn on or off certain genes.
For example, stress causes the release of cortisol from the adrenal glands which activates the cells of the nervous system, getting the body ready to deal with stress. Chronic stress, which the body was never designed to accommodate, leads to the constant bombardment of the cells by cortisol leading to an inflammatory response which is implicated in many disease states (including arthritis, cardiovascular disease and even Alzheimer’s disease).
Continue reading Stress and Cancer: Relationship Between Emotions and Disease