How are Trauma and Stress Related to Illness?

Stress is stress, whether it's from an emotional stress, a physical stress, a biological stress or an environmental one. The body can engage the same stress response to an argument with a partner as it can to an outward threat like a hungry grizzly bear. They all alert the body system to a threat and it then turns on the Stress Response System. The SRS is necessary for survival and it turns on when alerted to an attack inside of the body (like a pathogen) or to a threat detected outside of the body.

 

Once alerted, the SRS mobilizes the body to shift from internal cellular metabolism and reparative functions to external defense mode. Once the threat is gone, the SRS turns off and the body goes back to homeostasis. This is how it works when we have enough capacity and flexibility in our nervous system. We're able to mount a defense, process the activation (both physical and emotional) and then come back to baseline and regulation.

Chronic patterns of illness arise when this process doesn't complete itself and the SRS gets stuck in the ON position and continues to mount a defensive response, instead of going back to cellular metabolism and repair. Our bodies can believe they are still being attacked (emotionally or physically) even when the threat has already been resolved. This is often the case for those who have experienced trauma or chronic stress and adversity, which are essentially experiences that haven't been fully processed or completed. In other instances, our SRS will stay engaged because the danger has not yet fully been eradicated, as in the case with physical or relational situations of unsafety. When the body is stuck in a defensive response for too long, it begins to break down and cellular metabolism and repair are diminished, so we don't heal and we end up with faulty metabolic and immune functions that express as illness and disease.

 

In addition, when the Stress Response System is stuck ON, our brain and nervous system become hyper-sensitized and hyper-vigilant, which primes them to make mistakes in determining what is SAFE vs. DANGEROUS.  Our amazing brain is simply trying to keep us safe, but it can tag normal, neutral sensations in the body as DANGEROUS and then turn on some of the following DANGER SIGNALS.....  Pain, Fatigue, Dizziness, Vertigo, Nausea, Depression, Anxiety, Weakness, Insomnia, Uncomfortable Neurological Sensations,  Hyper-sensitivities to (light, sound, touch, smell, temperature or visual disturbances) and many more.

 

When these symptoms show up, we naturally believe that something is terribly wrong with our physical body. Why wouldn't we think that? In many cases, there is nothing structurally or functionally wrong with the body. Those of us who have gone to doctor after doctor who ran test after test, never finding anything "abnormal" may actually have a hyper-sensitized brain/nervous system that is expressing symptoms and pain due to faulty perceptions of danger. The stress of enduring those symptoms only increases the pain/danger cycle and increases the volume.

People with chronic pain, chronic EBV, chronic Lyme, CFS/ME, Adrenal Fatigue, patterns of MCS or MCAS and a host of other degenerative and chronic health conditions can experience a Stress Response that gets stuck in the ON position, either because a real threat still exists or because the brain has simply made a mistake.

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Brain generated pain and illness are more likely if you have a history of adversity or trauma, if you work in a high stress job or are under chronic stress and if you are highly sensitive, perfectionistic, and/or prone to anxiety, depression, disordered eating, OCD or other mental health conditions. This is called neuropathway or neuroplastic pain and symptoms.

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