Using the Science of Stress to Change Emotional | Physical Health
In my work with various groups and individuals, it’s been my simplification of the science of stress that has especially resonated for many of my clients, because stress is the underpinning of the impacts of secondhand drinking and often of alcohol and other drug misuse, as well as the success of one’s recovery.
So I was particuarly taken with Maria Popova’s July 20, 2015, article, “The Science of Stres and How Our Emotions Affect Our Susceptibility to Burnout and Disease.” Ms. Popova does a beautiful job of explaining “how our minds and bodies actually affect one another” within the context of stress and Dr. Esther Sternberg’s book, “The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions.” As Ms. Popova writes in her article,
…[N]o researcher has done more to illuminate the invisible threads that weave mind and body together than Dr. Esther Sternberg. Her groundbreaking work on the link between the central nervous system and the immune system, exploring how immune molecules made in the blood can trigger brain function that profoundly affects our emotions, has revolutionized our understanding of the integrated being we call a human self. In the immeasurably revelatory The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions (public library), Sternberg examines the interplay of our emotions and our physical health, mediated by that seemingly nebulous yet, it turns out, remarkably concrete experience called stress.
Understanding emotions through the Science of Stress
Why Understanding the Science of Stress can Help
As my readers, audiences and clients report, it’s understanding the science of stress that has given them the tools to re-wire, to heal their brains and thereby heal their physical and emotional health. I encourage to read Ms. Popova’s article and leave you with one last quote – in this case, one of her quotes of Dr. Sternberg’s, “Rather than seeing the psyche as the source of such illnesses, we are discovering that while feelings don’t directly cause or cure disease, the biological mechanisms underlying them may cause or contribute to disease.”
Lisa Frederiksen
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Thank you Lisa for sharing this article. Understanding the science of stress, what causes it and what you can do to help yourself can really make the difference. Substance use causes much stress within families, so the more tools and information family members have, the better.