The link between stress, disease and worsening symptoms has been observed for a long time. Consider this excerpt:

Stress is an everyday fact of life You can't avoid it. Stress is any change that you must adapt to, ranging from the negative extreme of actual physical danger to the exhilaration of falling in love or achieving some long-desired success. In between, day-to-day living confronts even the most well-managed life with a continuous stream of potentially stress¬ful experiences. Not all stress is had. In fact, stress is not only desirable but also essential to life. Whether the stress you experience is the result of major life changes or the cumula¬tive effect of minor everyday hassles, it is how you respond to these experiences that determines the impact stress will have on your life.

Sources of stress: You experience stress from four basic sources –

1. Your environment bombards you with demands to adjust- You must endure weather, pollens, noise, traffic, and pollution.
2. You also must cope with social dressers such as deadlines, financial problems, job interviews, presentations, disagreements, demands for your time and attention. and loss of loved ones.
3. A third source of stress is physiological. The rapid growth of adolescence, meno¬pause in women, illness, aging, injuries, lack of exercise, poor nutrition, and inadequate sleep all tax the body. Your physiological reaction to environmental and social threats and changes can also result in stressful symptoms such as mus¬cle tension, headaches, stomach upset, and anxiety.
4. The fourth source of stress is your thoughts. Your brain interprets complex changes in your environment and body and determines when to turn on the "emergency response”.

How you interpret and label your present experience and what you predict for the future can serve either to relax or to stress you. Interpreting a sour look from your boss to mean that you are doing an inadequate job is likely to be very anxiety provoking. Interpreting

Chronic stress and disease: Chronic or persistent stress can occur when the stressors of life are unrelenting, as they are during a major reorganization or downsizing at work or while you are undergoing a messy divorce or coping with a chronic or life-threatening illness. Chronic stress also occurs when little stressors accumulate and you are unable to recuperate from any one of them. As long as the mind perceives a threat, the body remains aroused. If the stress response remains turned on, you may be increasing your chances of a stress-related disease.

Researchers have been looking at the relationship between stress and disease for over fifty years. They have observed that people suffering from stress-related disorders tend to show hyperactivity in a particular "preferred system." such as the skeletal-muscular, cardiovascular, or gastrointestinal system. For example, evidence shows that chronic stress can result in muscle tension and fatigue for some people. For others. it can contribute to stress tension - migraine headaches, ulcers, or chronic diarrhea. Almost every system in your body can be damaged by stress. Suppression of the reproduction system can cause amenorrhea (cessation of menstruation) and failure to ovulate in women, impotency in men, and loss of libido in both. Stress-triggered changes in the lungs increase the symptoms of asthma, bronchitis, and other respiratory condi¬tions. Loss of insulin during the stress response may be a factor in the onset of adult diabetes.

Stress suspends tissue repair and remodeling, which in turn causes decalcification of the bones, osteoporosis, and susceptibility to fractures. Inhibition of immune and inflammatory systems makes you more susceptible to colds and flu and can exacerbate some diseases such as cancer and AIDS. In addition, a prolonged stress response can worsen conditions such as arthritis, chronic pain - and diabetes. There is also some evi¬dence that the continued release and depletion of norepinephrine during a state of chronic stress can contribute to depression.

The relationship between chronic stress, disease, and aging is another area of research. Experts in aging are looking at the changing patterns of disease and the emer¬gence of degenerative disorders. Over just a few generations, the threat of infectious dis¬eases such as typhoid, pneumonia, and polio have been replaced with such "modem plagues" as cardiovascular disease, cancer, arthritis, respiratory disorders such as asthma and emphysema, and a pervasive incidence of depression. As you age normally, you expect a natural slowing down of your body's functioning. But many of these mid- to late-life disorders are stress-sensitive diseases. Researchers and clinicians are now asking how stress accelerates the aging process and what can be done to counteract this process.

From The Relaxation & Stress Reduction Workbook by Martha Davis, Matthew McKay, Elizabeth Robbins Eshelman