How depression & anxiety affect the body

How depression & anxiety affect the body

Mental Stress Can Aid Disease, Hit Fightback

Jane E. Brody

06.10.2021

It’s no surprise that when a person gets a diagnosis of heart disease, cancer or some other life-limiting or life-threatening physical ailment, they become anxious or depressed. But the reverse can also be true: Undue anxiety or depression can foster the development of a serious physical disease, and even impede the ability to withstand or recover from one.

The human organism does not recognise the medical profession’s artificial separation of mental and physical ills. Rather, mind and body form a two-way street. What happens inside a person’s head can have damaging effects throughout the body, as well as the other way around. An untreated mental illness can significantly increase the risk of becoming physically ill, and physical disorders may result in behaviours that make mental conditions worse.

In studies that tracked how patients with breast cancer fared, for example, Dr David Spiegel and his colleagues at Stanford University School of Medicine showed decades ago that women whose depression was easing lived longer than those whose depression was getting worse. His research and other studies have clearly shown that “the brain is intimately connected to the body and the body to the brain,” Spiegel said in an interview. “The body tends to react to mental stress as if it was a physical stress.”

Many people are reluctant to seek treatment for emotional ills. Some people with anxiety or depression may fear being stigmatized, even if they recognize they have a serious psychological problem. Many attempt to self-treat their emotional distress by adopting behaviours like drinking too much or abusing drugs, which only adds insult to their preexisting injury. And sometimes, family members and friends inadvertently reinforce a person’s denial of mental distress by labeling it as “that’s just the way he is” and do nothing to encourage them to seek professional help.

Anxiety disorders affect nearly 20% of US adults. That means millions are beset by an overabundance of the fightor-flight response that primes the body for action. When you’re stressed, the brain responds by prompting the release of cortisol, nature’s builtin alarm system. It evolved to help animals facing physical threats by increasing respiration, raising the heart rate and redirecting blood flow from abdominal organs to muscles that assist in confronting or escaping danger.

These actions stem from the neurotransmitters epinephrine and norepinephrine, which stimulate the sympathetic nervous system and put the body on high alert. But when they are invoked too often and indiscriminately, the chronic overstimulation can result in all manner of physical ills, including indigestion, cramps, diarrhea or constipation, and an increased risk of heart attack or stroke.

“Depression diminishes a person’s capacity to analyze and respond rationally to stress,” Spiegel said. “They end up in a vicious cycle with limited capacity to get out of a negative mental state.” Potentially making matters worse, undue anxiety and depression often coexist, leaving people vulnerable to a panoply of physical ailments and an inability to adopt with needed therapy.

According to Dr John Frownfelter, treatment for any condition works better when doctors understand “the pressures patients face that affect their behavior and result in clinical harm.” NYT NEWS SERVICE

EMOTIONAL ILLS