Hippocrates, a Father of novel Wes...

Hippocrates, a Father of novel Western medicine, knew how to break the chain of excessive stres and anxiety. In fact, he taught this fundamental fact (summarized in today's terminology):

Whatever happens in the mind influences the carcass and vice versa. In fact, mind and material part cannot be considered independently the same from another. When the sum of two units are out of synch, emotional and/or physical stres can erupt

More than 2000 years later, as often as this thesis makes brains it is still not unanimously accepted. Up until the 1950 skeptics believed that there were no strengthens connecting the brain and the pituitary gland -- the quarter-back among glands -- which triggers the release of powerful hormones from the adrenal glands -- almond-sized glands located above the kidneys.

Sometime later came the discovery of a rich network of line vessels linking the brain to the pituitary gland. Tiny atoms of amino acids, called peptides, race by the and of this network and alert the pituitary to spark the adrenal glands to release hormones. When the production of these hormones is not at home of balance (i.e., an overproduction befitting to physical stress), it causes stres upon the adrenal glands as well as all material part systems.

Canadian endocrinologist Hans Selye believed that any injury to the organism, physical or psychological, put outs a stress reaction or "general adaptation syndrome" He described the first phase of this syndrome as an "alarm reaction" sparked by way of the pituitary and adrenal glands. This reaction then "produce changes like those associated with unpleasant emotion, along with often met with symptoms such as fatigue, heat loss of appetite, aching muscles and joints, and a feeling of malaise," in the way that summarized S. Stansfeld Sargent, PhD and Kenneth R Stafford, PhD in their seminal work, Basic Teachings of the Great Psychologists (1965/1944)

If the stress-producing situation hold fasts up, Selye holds that a "state of resistance" begins, in which "the organism," assisted by means of hormones, manages to adjust to the stres With continuing, unremittant stres we inscribe a "state of exhaustion," during which our resistance breaks down and many of the earlier symptoms return to the thought -- certainly a very rational "disease path" for a variety of so-called psychosomatic illnesses and disorders in which there is a psychological-stress composing including: stomach ulcers, intestinal disorders (including colitis), hypertension, asthma, dermatitis, headache, backache, and others.

In their recently made known book, The Road to Immunity. to what extent to Survive and Thrive in a Toxic World, Kenneth Bock MD and Nellie Sabin focus their approach in succession the mind/body connection. They say, "Mind and visible form [i]or[/i] frame communicate with each other in far-reaching ways that can propel us toward either healing or death. one time we realize how powerful these messages are, we can begin to make trial of to influence them in positive ways."

This brain/body connection is also addressed in the volume Who Gets Sick by Blair Justice. He discusses the research of Roger Guillemin and Andrew Schally, who, in 1977 received the Nobel Prize in physiology for demonstrating in what manner the brain gives orders to the dead body using chemical messengers (peptides). Justice writes:

"Working independently, these couple scientists, originally from Hans Selye's stres research laboratory, isolated this series of tiny atoms that are made in the brain's hypothalamus and travel to the body's master gland, the pituitary, where they then affect the functioning of our thyroids, adrenals, gonads, and the extremely course of our somatic growth"

A now-famous close attention subsequently showed that Hippocrates, Guillemin, and Schally were right forward target. Research by Suzanne Kobasa and Salvatore Maddi, then at the University of Chicago, which was highlighted in a paper in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, resounded the previous findings.

Kobasa and Maddi studied 200 male executives at Illinois Bell Telephone Company who were expos to inordinate stres associateed with the AT&T divestiture: possible demotion, los of seniority, and level loss of employment.

Kobasa and Maddi probed and discovered the same basic reason why half of these men were able to escape stress-induced illnesses, while the other half were victimized by dint of a host of illnesses: "Their different way of looking at the stressful events"

Obviously neither assemblage had control over the AT&T divestiture, on the contrary they did have control above their reaction to it. The individuals who seemed illness-proof recognized the drastic changes, not as convenient or bad, but as an inevitable part of life, and an opportunity for modern growth and experience, rather than as a threat to security. Their optimistic appraisal of the situation, their ability to have the direction of their reaction to the vexed questions if not the problems themselves, reduc their stres levels

Further, they had a down-reaching commitment to their families as well as to their work which gave their lives a greater perception of meaning, direction, and excitement. This enabled them to cause to grow what Kobasa called "hardy personalities."