Can stress cause diseases?

Stress can increase your blood pressure and can lead to other things like a heart attack and can lower your immune system as all the blood is concentrated on your heart rather than the immune system.

I'm not sure about cavities, but stress can trigger other ailments. We can't always help being stressed, but we can try to learn to control it.

 

I'm not sure if it can cause diseases, but it can certainly contribute to making them worse. It can also weaken your immune system making you more vulnerable to getting sick. It really does contribute a lot to digestive problems. A few years back, I was under a really stressful situation and my stress manifested itself with acute stomach pain. My doctor told me try to manage my stress and to take probiotics. It helped a lot.

 

Stress can decrease immunity and lead to all kinds of problems. Just about every disease could be linked to stress or worsened by stress. Stress can definitely cause stomach problems, in fact that is probably one of the most common physical ailments directly caused by stress. It can cause anything from mild nausea to gastritis, which is very painful. Stress is something you really want to watch out for. Take the time for yourself to lower your stress levels to protect your health.

 

There are a lot of times when you get stressed and up falling ill. It is common to end up having diarrhoea or vomiting due to acute stress. Hence I do not say that stress can cause disease but it can definitely make a person very ill and unhealthy. I am sire it is a certain form of disease.

 

Stress can also trigger hair loss and certain skin condition like eczema. I've suffered from mild to moderate hair loss before and I've used all sorts of anti-hair fall shampoos/conditioners and nothing work.

A doctor friend told me that it may be because of stress so she recommend that I do some regular exercise. And after running/jogging regularly for only a week, I notice that my hair fall problems was almost gone (just the normal hair fall of a few strands).

 

You better believe it does. Stress triggers a lot of negative health issues. In fact, my own cousin, who was a workaholic prior to getting married and migrating to Australia, had suddenly collapsed due to stress. It was like a minor stroke caused by too much fatigue and overworking. Never let stress get the better of you. It's best to rest than sacrifice your well-being.

 

Of course. When I am stressed, I get migraine. Sometimes, when I am stressed for days because of work, I get the flu.

 

Stress is a contributing factor that can help illnesses develop, but it doesn't directly cause it, as there are many other factors to blame. The air we breath, what we consume, the wounds we sustain, the injuries we get, and the genetics we are bound to that might pass down a common bloodline illness are the real causes of why people develop ailments. That's why it's best to live as healthy and as safe as you can, even though sometimes you just can't avoid sickness. Stress itself on top of that just deteriorates matters and can promote progression of illness.

 

I'm not exactly sure if it's scientifically proven, but I've heard some people claim that stress can cause anything from ulcers to hair loss, and I'm not sure how much I would believe them but all in all I think it's best to just keep safe and try not to stress out too much. It's not like stress is that useful anyway. We gain nothing from worrying so we might as well not do it whether it does contribute to physical disease or not.

 

It really can make you sick and it does give you cavities. It gives you cavities because when you stress, your body uses all of its resources to repair and if you do not eat all of those minerals it needs then it takes it from your teeth and bones. Stress is so bad for our bodies and I really think it can give us greater illnesses if not resolved. I have severe anxiety and panic attacks from 10 years of stress. Now I am taking the time to slow down and repair, but I know it will take time.

 

I agree with DRipley. Stress does cause ulcers. I once lived with someone who had financial difficulties. She had loans to pay, didn't earn enough and she had a family to take care of. Though she'd been healthy previously, out of the blue she started getting these severe stomaches. She found out that she'd got ulcers so yeah, stress will take its toll on your body.

 

Oh I fully believe that prolonged stress is a major contributor to disease. Stress, serotonin, and hormones all play an equal role in controlling much of how our bodies function, from mood, to sleep, to weight loss and gain, to fighting off sickness. Why wouldn't stress contribute to something like cancer?

I think one of the biggest problems in our healthcare right now (American here) is that far too few doctors approach medicine from a holistic perspective. I simply refuse to believe anything happens completely in isolation. But it is far too easy to just write a prescription for an isolated symptom, rather than tackle the body, lifestyle, and everything else, as a whole.

As far as your stress and stomach sickness being related, I say it is definitely possible. Every year in college I got really sick immediately following finals. Almost like the stress and lack of sleep and bad diet during the study days all came crashing down when all my exams were complete. It totally makes sense. Stress lowers immunity. You probably caught a virus and stress is preventing your body from fighting it faster.

 

I think stress can definitely contribute to a weakened immune system. It can also make some ailments worse. Being under stress has negative effects on your body and brain. If you find yourself under constant stress, analyze your life and see which areas bring you worry. I believe trying to improve your quality of life with less stress can lead to a longer, happier, healthier life.

 

Stress can be a large contributing factor to a lot of diseases like ulcers. Stress can cause sleep problems which would cause you to be unfocused and could lead to injury.

 

Ugh you said it in your second paragraph. I was diagnosed with GERD last year but that's not a disease in itself. It's a series of symptoms. I tried to tell my doctor about not taking medicine but she just wasn't listening. She didn't even really try to figure out why I had it. I told her my symptoms and that was it. I've tried googling but that doesn't really help me on my way to figuring out the medical cause as it's not personal to me.

 

Yes, I definitely believe that stress can cause a disease and can make an existing disease worse. If we are stressed out, that means that something in our mind is not feeling well, we are having thoughts that are causing the body to feel bad (stressed). Maybe the brain just gets to the point where it can't handle so many bad thoughts at once, that the body has to spread the bad feelings from our brain into other parts of our body.

 

I personally think it can. Once someone starts stressing about something then their heart beats faster which causes a whole lot of problems. Our bodies are less likely to fight off a cold if we are too stress because our body is not making the good cells to help with the immune system. Your immune system kind of shuts down once we really start stressing because our body doesn't have any happy cells going through us. Instead they are making sure our major systems don't fall apart. I do not know all the technical words for it. I know it has something to do with the dopamine in our brains.