5 ms·

Emotional stress is biological stress unless you believe in an extreme form of cartesian dualism incompatible with modern understanding of physiology.

copperx 7y ago
Sure, it's atoms all the way down; however, it is still important to make a distinction. Biological stress can be beneficial for our well being, while emotional stress (fight or flight response) has mostly deleterious effects.
- internet_user 7y ago
  You could have hormetic effects from psychological stressors as well. They really are identical on a certain level.
tomhoward 7y ago
I agree with you and I’d guess your parent commenter would too. Yet, many people who consider themselves to be rational and scientifically-minded, and who reject dualism, scoff at the notion that physiological illness can be caused/exacerbated by emotional stress. Try this out some time: suggest that an illness like chronic fatigue syndrome or general autoimmune illness is at least somewhat linked to emotional stress and/or trauma, and see what kinds of reactions you get (or go and look at the discussions about this topic in CFS communities).
- internet_user 7y ago
  Amazing how conversations swing from one side of extreme to another in just two comments. What's next, are you going to suggest basilar skull fractures are somewhat linked to emotional stress? The responses you'd get would likely be due to PTSD induced by interacting with the very rational and scientifically-minded profit-maximizing medical industry, and/or incompetent physicians unable to provide an effective relief for the underlying condition. Try out this some time: try to reduce stigma around various disorders instead of suggesting running nonconsensual unethical experiments, bordering on sociopathy, on those suffering from difficult to treat disorders.
  - tomhoward 7y ago
    > What's next, are you going to suggest basilar skull fractures are somewhat linked to emotional stress? If you want to discuss this topic in good faith you should edit your comment to remove this appeal to ridicule. I don't know what you think I'm advocating that motivates the bilious accusations in the rest of your comment. From what I can tell: - We seem to agree that people suffering chronic, difficult-to-treat illnesses have it extremely tough, and it would be ideal if they didn't (I know this from personal experience) - We also seem to agree that the profit motive creates perverse incentives in medical research and treatment. Outside of that, your comment seems to be just another example of the very phenomenon I was pointing out. To be clear: I've experienced difficult-to-treat illness that seems to be autoimmune-related for much of my life. I'm now almost completely well, having undertaken a variety of treatments including deep emotional/trauma healing work over the past 8+ years. There is no mainstream physician, of any supposed level of competence, who would have recommended the approach that has enabled me to achieve the level of health I've now reached. There are notable exceptions – Gabor Maté and Bruce Lipton being the most prominent – yet neither are taken seriously by the scientific/medical mainstream, despite both having advanced mainstream medical credentials.
    - tudorw 7y ago
      Glad to hear that your health is improving. I have my own set of experiences that lead me to support your argument, the medical community seems to suffer from a lot of defensive or downright elitist behaviour when it comes to a discussion of their field with anyone outside it. It seems like a very 'siloed' industry with little cross-communication at the front line of care. The emerging field of Psychoneuroendocrinology seems like an attempt to address that by 'dealing with the interrelated disciplines of psychology, neurobiology, endocrinology, immunology, neurology, and psychiatry, with an emphasis on multidisciplinary studies aiming at integrating these disciplines in terms of either basic research or clinical implications.' in their words; https://www.journals.elsevier.com/psychoneuroendocrinology https://www.journals.elsevier.com/psychoneuroendocrinology
- Fezzik 7y ago
  I totally agree. I was once in the camp that believed mental disorders/traumas could never manifest themselves in real, significant, physical ways. Currently, I work in juvenile dependency law (which I bring up often in comments... as it shapes my world view... a lot) where I represent our State Child Welfare Department when they intervene/work with families when parents are struggling to appropriately parent. We often work with children that have been sexually/physically/emotionally abused. These children will go in to foster care and their parents will engaged in services to address their lack of parenting skills. The parents will also, generally, have limited visitation with their children. Often, again, these children have severe issues: encopresis, extreme weight gain/loss, lack of social skills, lashing out at peers and adults for no reason, hyper-sexualized behaviors, etc... While in foster care, these behaviors often decrease significantly. Then, out of the blue, after one visit with a parent, the children see all of their issues re-arise and they completely decompensate for days or weeks or months. It is horrific to watch. The point being, I imagine this same thing happens with adults. And I think we, as a society, do a horrible job realizing how deep trauma can run and how it can manifest itself. For children everyone accepts it as normal, but for adults the perspecitive seems to be exactly as you state it is. And this is just wrong. If that makes sense.
  - tomhoward 7y ago
    It sure does make sense. Thanks for sharing your observations. If you haven't already, I'd strongly recommend looking up Gabor Maté; he's written several books and has plenty of talks/interviews on YouTube, and at least a couple of threads here on HN I think. He’s a Canada-based physician who has spent his career researching and writing/speaking about this whole topic. The world needs to pay a lot more attention to people like him IMO.
  - posj7 7y ago
    Psychology/Social psychology exercises at school are the way to go. More awareness = better outcomes. How people handle Trump and his base is a good marker of the populations mental health/self-awareness levels.
  - victoria-petite 7y ago
    > The point being, I imagine this same thing happens with adults. And I think we, as a society, do a horrible job realizing how deep trauma can run and how it can manifest itself. Uncertainty is scary. That is why trauma victims are placed in boxes, but it is wrong to do. We have celebrated people who persevere and overcome their circumstances and we must continue to do so. We must give the gift of believe and faith to people who exist through circumstances that are destructive to the development of faith, belief, and trust. Any victim has the potential to do that if their environment is supportive to providing that. It always depends on surroundings and belief of everyone. Everyone matters.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- nabnob 7y ago
  This is a growing area of research now, on how trauma and emotional stress affect mental health. For anyone interested in this topic, The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk is a good resources. I also like the madinamerica website, which offers articles written by mental health practitioners who are critical of the chemical imbalance model of the brain (which was pushed by pharmaceutical companies https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-psychiatric-drug-crisis https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-psyc...).
- Arete314159 7y ago
  Almost every disease can be linked to emotional stress or trauma. When people have a high ACES (Adverse Childhood Experiences Score) Score, their risk of almost every adult illness goes up a lot. That's because childhood trauma causes epigenetic changes that affect inflammation, immune function, etc. A heart attack can be triggered by stress. But you don't go up to someone who's had a heart attack and say, "Just relax -- it's just stress." Stress may have been the spark but once the fire is lit it burns all on its own. Similarly with a lot of bodily ailments, once a system is compromised then "relaxing" might not be enough to fix it. As someone with CFS, what we don't like is when people imply or just say that it's "not real," "not that bad," "all in our heads," etc. Often laypersons become armchair diagnosticians, tell you that you're 'stressed,' and then assume that knowledge will fix the problem. But, just like the patient who's had a heart attack, the problem is a lot bigger now, and the interventions required are a lot more difficult than "just relax."
colechristensen 7y ago
A wide gulf exists between consciousness and neurons. There are many easy abstractions to make between the two and putting the stress from starvation and the stress from grieving a parent's death in the same bucket is pointlessly pedantic.
dntbnmpls 7y ago
I agree with you, but there is an entire field ( psychology ) predicated on the mind and brain duality. So perhaps they might view some or all emotional stress as "mental/psychological" stress not entirely tied to biological stress.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > but there is an entire field ( psychology ) predicated on the mind and brain duality. No, psychology isn't predicated on mind/body duality. Much of it is arguably compatible with mind/body duality simply because it doesn't address physical root causes but only higher-level phenomena, but going beyond that to say that it is predicated on mind/body duality is like saying that Computer Science, because it deals with abstract computation and mostly not the underlying physical mechanisms (left to the separate field of computer engineering) is predicated on computation/processor duality.
  - dntbnmpls 7y ago
    > No, psychology isn't predicated on mind/body duality. Can you tell me how psychology exists without the mind? > Much of it is arguably compatible with mind/body duality simply because it doesn't address physical root So it is predicated on the mind/brain. > because it deals with abstract computation and mostly not the underlying physical mechanisms (left to the separate field of computer engineering) is predicated on computation/processor duality Your analogy seems off and you assertion contradicts itself. Computer science is a math. It lives in the world of "forms". Computer science exists without the processor. It existed before the processor. Lambda calculus and the turing machine existed before the processor. Just like arithmetic existed before calculators. Are you saying the mind exists without the brain? The mind existed before the brain? So aren't we back to square one - the mind/brain duality? If psychology isn't predicated on mind/brain duality, what is it predicated on?
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > Can you tell me how psychology exists without the mind? It doesn't (well, except maybe behavioral psychology, which arguably could) exist without the mind. It just doesn't care one way or another about whether the mind is a direct product of the physical body or not. “Mind/body” duality isn't just “the mind exist”, but “the mind is at least in part not a property of the body”. > If psychology isn't predicated on mind/brain duality, what is it predicated on? Depends what particular branch. Behavioral psychology is predicated on humans existing and having behavior, most of the rest of psychology is predicated on humans existing and having cognition, whether or not that cognition is a property of the physical body.
agumonkey 7y ago
Do we have some form of map between emotions and soma ? I read a few things about hormone cascade and neurological noise when traumatized. But that's not very precise.
coldtea 7y ago
>Emotional stress is biological stress unless you believe in an extreme form of cartesian dualism incompatible with modern understanding of physiology. Not necessarily. You can believe in the "modern understanding of physiology" and still think that "Emotional stress" is a "thinking" process that does not affect biological physiology. It's not necessary that every emotion or brain process manifests in any other way aside from brain synapses firing and so on (e.g. that it affects the bodily operations in some other way). So, it's not an either-or, but 3 options: 1) cartesian dualism (emotion and biology are two different spheres, soul independent of the body etc) 2) emotional stress triggers biological stress 3) emotional stress remains a brain process and doesn't trigger biological stress And the case is probably sometimes (2) and sometimes (3).
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

copperx 7y ago

Sure, it's atoms all the way down; however, it is still important to make a distinction. Biological stress can be beneficial for our well being, while emotional stress (fight or flight response) has mostly deleterious effects.

internet_user 7y ago
You could have hormetic effects from psychological stressors as well. They really are identical on a certain level.

tomhoward 7y ago

I agree with you and I’d guess your parent commenter would too. Yet, many people who consider themselves to be rational and scientifically-minded, and who reject dualism, scoff at the notion that physiological illness can be caused/exacerbated by emotional stress. Try this out some time: suggest that an illness like chronic fatigue syndrome or general autoimmune illness is at least somewhat linked to emotional stress and/or trauma, and see what kinds of reactions you get (or go and look at the discussions about this topic in CFS communities).

internet_user 7y ago
Amazing how conversations swing from one side of extreme to another in just two comments. What's next, are you going to suggest basilar skull fractures are somewhat linked to emotional stress? The responses you'd get would likely be due to PTSD induced by interacting with the very rational and scientifically-minded profit-maximizing medical industry, and/or incompetent physicians unable to provide an effective relief for the underlying condition. Try out this some time: try to reduce stigma around various disorders instead of suggesting running nonconsensual unethical experiments, bordering on sociopathy, on those suffering from difficult to treat disorders.
- tomhoward 7y ago
  > What's next, are you going to suggest basilar skull fractures are somewhat linked to emotional stress? If you want to discuss this topic in good faith you should edit your comment to remove this appeal to ridicule. I don't know what you think I'm advocating that motivates the bilious accusations in the rest of your comment. From what I can tell: - We seem to agree that people suffering chronic, difficult-to-treat illnesses have it extremely tough, and it would be ideal if they didn't (I know this from personal experience) - We also seem to agree that the profit motive creates perverse incentives in medical research and treatment. Outside of that, your comment seems to be just another example of the very phenomenon I was pointing out. To be clear: I've experienced difficult-to-treat illness that seems to be autoimmune-related for much of my life. I'm now almost completely well, having undertaken a variety of treatments including deep emotional/trauma healing work over the past 8+ years. There is no mainstream physician, of any supposed level of competence, who would have recommended the approach that has enabled me to achieve the level of health I've now reached. There are notable exceptions – Gabor Maté and Bruce Lipton being the most prominent – yet neither are taken seriously by the scientific/medical mainstream, despite both having advanced mainstream medical credentials.
  - tudorw 7y ago
    Glad to hear that your health is improving. I have my own set of experiences that lead me to support your argument, the medical community seems to suffer from a lot of defensive or downright elitist behaviour when it comes to a discussion of their field with anyone outside it. It seems like a very 'siloed' industry with little cross-communication at the front line of care. The emerging field of Psychoneuroendocrinology seems like an attempt to address that by 'dealing with the interrelated disciplines of psychology, neurobiology, endocrinology, immunology, neurology, and psychiatry, with an emphasis on multidisciplinary studies aiming at integrating these disciplines in terms of either basic research or clinical implications.' in their words; https://www.journals.elsevier.com/psychoneuroendocrinology https://www.journals.elsevier.com/psychoneuroendocrinology
Fezzik 7y ago
I totally agree. I was once in the camp that believed mental disorders/traumas could never manifest themselves in real, significant, physical ways. Currently, I work in juvenile dependency law (which I bring up often in comments... as it shapes my world view... a lot) where I represent our State Child Welfare Department when they intervene/work with families when parents are struggling to appropriately parent. We often work with children that have been sexually/physically/emotionally abused. These children will go in to foster care and their parents will engaged in services to address their lack of parenting skills. The parents will also, generally, have limited visitation with their children. Often, again, these children have severe issues: encopresis, extreme weight gain/loss, lack of social skills, lashing out at peers and adults for no reason, hyper-sexualized behaviors, etc... While in foster care, these behaviors often decrease significantly. Then, out of the blue, after one visit with a parent, the children see all of their issues re-arise and they completely decompensate for days or weeks or months. It is horrific to watch. The point being, I imagine this same thing happens with adults. And I think we, as a society, do a horrible job realizing how deep trauma can run and how it can manifest itself. For children everyone accepts it as normal, but for adults the perspecitive seems to be exactly as you state it is. And this is just wrong. If that makes sense.
- tomhoward 7y ago
  It sure does make sense. Thanks for sharing your observations. If you haven't already, I'd strongly recommend looking up Gabor Maté; he's written several books and has plenty of talks/interviews on YouTube, and at least a couple of threads here on HN I think. He’s a Canada-based physician who has spent his career researching and writing/speaking about this whole topic. The world needs to pay a lot more attention to people like him IMO.
- posj7 7y ago
  Psychology/Social psychology exercises at school are the way to go. More awareness = better outcomes. How people handle Trump and his base is a good marker of the populations mental health/self-awareness levels.
- victoria-petite 7y ago
  > The point being, I imagine this same thing happens with adults. And I think we, as a society, do a horrible job realizing how deep trauma can run and how it can manifest itself. Uncertainty is scary. That is why trauma victims are placed in boxes, but it is wrong to do. We have celebrated people who persevere and overcome their circumstances and we must continue to do so. We must give the gift of believe and faith to people who exist through circumstances that are destructive to the development of faith, belief, and trust. Any victim has the potential to do that if their environment is supportive to providing that. It always depends on surroundings and belief of everyone. Everyone matters.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
nabnob 7y ago
This is a growing area of research now, on how trauma and emotional stress affect mental health. For anyone interested in this topic, The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk is a good resources. I also like the madinamerica website, which offers articles written by mental health practitioners who are critical of the chemical imbalance model of the brain (which was pushed by pharmaceutical companies https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-psychiatric-drug-crisis https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-psyc...).
Arete314159 7y ago
Almost every disease can be linked to emotional stress or trauma. When people have a high ACES (Adverse Childhood Experiences Score) Score, their risk of almost every adult illness goes up a lot. That's because childhood trauma causes epigenetic changes that affect inflammation, immune function, etc. A heart attack can be triggered by stress. But you don't go up to someone who's had a heart attack and say, "Just relax -- it's just stress." Stress may have been the spark but once the fire is lit it burns all on its own. Similarly with a lot of bodily ailments, once a system is compromised then "relaxing" might not be enough to fix it. As someone with CFS, what we don't like is when people imply or just say that it's "not real," "not that bad," "all in our heads," etc. Often laypersons become armchair diagnosticians, tell you that you're 'stressed,' and then assume that knowledge will fix the problem. But, just like the patient who's had a heart attack, the problem is a lot bigger now, and the interventions required are a lot more difficult than "just relax."

colechristensen 7y ago

A wide gulf exists between consciousness and neurons. There are many easy abstractions to make between the two and putting the stress from starvation and the stress from grieving a parent's death in the same bucket is pointlessly pedantic.

dntbnmpls 7y ago

I agree with you, but there is an entire field ( psychology ) predicated on the mind and brain duality. So perhaps they might view some or all emotional stress as "mental/psychological" stress not entirely tied to biological stress.

dragonwriter 7y ago
> but there is an entire field ( psychology ) predicated on the mind and brain duality. No, psychology isn't predicated on mind/body duality. Much of it is arguably compatible with mind/body duality simply because it doesn't address physical root causes but only higher-level phenomena, but going beyond that to say that it is predicated on mind/body duality is like saying that Computer Science, because it deals with abstract computation and mostly not the underlying physical mechanisms (left to the separate field of computer engineering) is predicated on computation/processor duality.
- dntbnmpls 7y ago
  > No, psychology isn't predicated on mind/body duality. Can you tell me how psychology exists without the mind? > Much of it is arguably compatible with mind/body duality simply because it doesn't address physical root So it is predicated on the mind/brain. > because it deals with abstract computation and mostly not the underlying physical mechanisms (left to the separate field of computer engineering) is predicated on computation/processor duality Your analogy seems off and you assertion contradicts itself. Computer science is a math. It lives in the world of "forms". Computer science exists without the processor. It existed before the processor. Lambda calculus and the turing machine existed before the processor. Just like arithmetic existed before calculators. Are you saying the mind exists without the brain? The mind existed before the brain? So aren't we back to square one - the mind/brain duality? If psychology isn't predicated on mind/brain duality, what is it predicated on?
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > Can you tell me how psychology exists without the mind? It doesn't (well, except maybe behavioral psychology, which arguably could) exist without the mind. It just doesn't care one way or another about whether the mind is a direct product of the physical body or not. “Mind/body” duality isn't just “the mind exist”, but “the mind is at least in part not a property of the body”. > If psychology isn't predicated on mind/brain duality, what is it predicated on? Depends what particular branch. Behavioral psychology is predicated on humans existing and having behavior, most of the rest of psychology is predicated on humans existing and having cognition, whether or not that cognition is a property of the physical body.

agumonkey 7y ago

Do we have some form of map between emotions and soma ? I read a few things about hormone cascade and neurological noise when traumatized. But that's not very precise.

coldtea 7y ago

>Emotional stress is biological stress unless you believe in an extreme form of cartesian dualism incompatible with modern understanding of physiology. Not necessarily. You can believe in the "modern understanding of physiology" and still think that "Emotional stress" is a "thinking" process that does not affect biological physiology. It's not necessary that every emotion or brain process manifests in any other way aside from brain synapses firing and so on (e.g. that it affects the bodily operations in some other way). So, it's not an either-or, but 3 options: 1) cartesian dualism (emotion and biology are two different spheres, soul independent of the body etc) 2) emotional stress triggers biological stress 3) emotional stress remains a brain process and doesn't trigger biological stress And the case is probably sometimes (2) and sometimes (3).

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]