Holistic Health Associates | Stress and Medicine

Stress Pain is often seen as a very physical symptom. I was in a car accident and now I have neck pain. Often, people donʼt think about making the connection of stress on something as physical in nature as pain. Even pain from an automobile accident can have signiﬁcant complications from stress. This means that stress and our emotions play a very important role not just in pain, but also to many other dimensions of our health.

A patient of mine coined the term “two for.” Once she began to see the connection between stress and back pain – in her case anger and her back pain – she began to see the same connection in those around her. She came in for a treatment once and told me about the “Two for.” In church she would talk to the other women and inevitably they would start to talk about their stresses like how their young grand child just got pregnant or how their nephew just got in trouble, then they would inevitably follow it up with, “oh and you wouldnʼt believe how bad my kneeʼs been acting up!” When they accompanied about one life stress they always brought up the second physical ailment. “You always got two for one” my patient told me. “Thatʼs a two for,” she said.

Once we see how our emotions affect the physical body you gain ﬁrst hand knowledge with what the mind-body relationship really means. The mind-body relationship is not an esoteric, new age belief. It is the way our body functions and for good reason, much of what I see in regard to the mind-body connection in my clinic comes from people under stress. Even if they donʼt looked stressed from the outside with a few pointed questions you can ﬁnd how they are actually feeling stressed inside.

Stress triggers both emotional and physiological response in all of us. Typically, this response puts us in a better position to physically defend ourselves, create a superior posture or help us ﬂee from danger. In the modern world though, when we develop stress over our daughter moving back home, having to take care of an ailing parent or dealing with our terrible work situation, physical defense isnʼt necessary. However, our body triggers it anyway. What occurs after that trigger causes a cascade of biochemical, neurological and emotional responses that have far reaching health consequences.

In the last article we looked at how stress can develop into pain, what else can it develop into. Anyone that has raised children know ﬁrst hand that when children are under stress they often get stomach aches. This mind-body relationship never changes as we become adults. Digestive issues are often stress related or exacerbated by stress. IBS and even rheumatoid arthritis are also easily affected by stress. Any inﬂammatory process that the body undergoes will be further enﬂamed by stress.

Headaches and mood are certainly affected by our level of stress. In fact, one could easily say that our nervous system is the ﬁrst to be negatively affected by chronic stress. Over periods of constant stress our nervous system begins to rev up and we become hyper-vigilant, which causes us to interpret stress in even the most common every day situations. Over time maintaining this high level of vigilance drains us and leaves us depleted and tired from always “putting out ﬁres.” Our immune system becomes compromised, we get sick more easily, feel fatigued and even loose our short term memory.

There is hope. A constant predictable result of acupuncture is immediate stress relief. I canʼt tell you how many people after a good acupuncture treatment report simply feeling rested and relaxed. Whatʼs more amazing is that this feeling can last. Over time acupuncture can help us reset our automatic response to a situation. Instead of automatically going into ﬁght or ﬂight we can asses the situation more clearly and make the appropriate levelheaded decision. People ﬁnd that they feel more calm and “centered,” that they arenʼt as reactive and much more aware of their situation.

What is important to note is that no patient is treated like the next patient. Each personʼs stress is looked at with speciﬁc regards to their main complaints and life situations. There is no cookie cutter method which will work on everyone. Each person is treated individually with regard to their speciﬁc needs. And as people become better, able to deal with their stress then it is possible to see a whole host of changes occur in their health, even signiﬁcant symptoms.