PSYCHONEUROIMMUNOLOGY…Stress=Illness… A personal look

Within the last week I found out that my Dads wife had to be admitted into the hospital. Since her son had a stroke in February 2013, she has been experiencing some horrible neck pain. She has gone to numerous Doctors, Chiropractors etc. The only relief from the pain has been medication. Recently the pain got worse and she is at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN undergoing a bone marrow biopsy.  I havent heard any news yet but expect to in the next couple of days…

I don’t think its any coincindence that it happened right after her son had a very serious life changing stroke. The stress of that is horrendous. Stress and the immune system or Psychoneuroimmunology is a widely researched field now and its no news that stress is linked to illness. I would say all illness.  Its funny that these discoveries are so recent as in past 10-15 years. Your thoughts or your psyche are connected to every bodily organ and function so its amazing it took so long…

How can we prevent stress? We can’t. Its inherent in life. There are obstacles, illness, death and we all have to face it. I think living a life focused on wellness and health makes us better able to handle the obstacles when they do come. Exercise, diet, meditation, positive focus all raise the odds that our bodies will better withstand stress when it inevitably shows up.

I watched my own Mother, who died in 1996 undergo rounds and rounds of Chemotherapy and what that did to her body is unspeakable even so many years later. My Mother was the picture of health and did almost everything right. People often remarked how great she looked and how vibrant she was. She exercised, had a healthy diet…..but she never took care of her wounds from childhood. I think those wounds impacted her body and played a role in her early death. She died at 56.  Her Father was a binge drinking Alcoholic and he was mean (so they say) This wasn’t the Grandfather I knew but I heard stories from my Mother many times how he would go on binges and leave the family and they were once even in a Tornado and didn’t know where he was because he was on one of his binges. He would then quit for months and months until the next binge. My Mother never really drank alcohol and was horrified when I had my bout with drinking and Marajuana when I was in High School.  Her wounds were apparent in the way she parented. She expected my Sister and I to be little perfect robots and of course we weren’t and couldn’t be. She wanted everything to look perfect and be predictable. I suspect this had to do with the fact that her young life had been somewhat unpredictable. She never went to Therapy or anything regarding her past and the entire family took the brunt of her wounds along with her. She did attend Therapy a couple years before she died and was almost like a new person. I suppose on a cellular level though those wounds added stress to her body for along time. I see this as the main cause of a early death.  On a spiritual level though of course this was her life path and she chose it before she got here.

My own life. I do all the right things too…hahah I exercise daily almost. Running. I eat really healthy 95% of the time. I have tried over the years different ways to express myself and get my feelings out about things but I too have the style of “being” in the world where I tend to not want to focus on my painful feelings. Its part of this life and something that needs to be released to add to an overall healthy life.I  hope to improve in this area in the coming years.  Writing helps…Thank you to those who read this…Namaste