Many people who suffer from chronic organic diseases such as diabetes, asthma, high pressure, stomach and duodenal ulcers, psoriasis, rheumatism, and others note that their psychological state directly affects the disease they suffer from. Their symptoms worsen with the poor psychological condition they suffer from, and they improve with their improvement. Authorized psychological state has a direct impact on the organic state.
Some of us may notice this relationship, but few of us know that mental illnesses may lead to organic diseases that may be dangerous. It is common that shock or extreme upset lead to paralysis (point), heart attack, or sudden death. Cinema and television have played a role in spreading this culture, although it is not devoid of some truth.
Mental illnesses increase the likelihood of developing many health problems that are more likely to occur in mental patients than others. I will list some examples as an example but not a limitation.
Irritable Bowel Syndrome is a disease closely related to the mental state. It causes recurrent pain that may be severe at times, even resembling appendicitis. Irritable bowel pain increases with nervous tension or psychological depression.
Psychological depression and nervous tension increase the chances of developing high blood pressure, and high blood pressure leads to many problems in the heart, such as an enlarged heart and angina pectoris as a result of narrowing of the coronary arteries, hardening of the brain arteries, clots and brain bleeding that lead to paralysis or death. In fact, a depressed patient who suffers from a clot in the coronary arteries is more likely to have complications from this clot than a patient who does not suffer from depression.
Ulcers of the stomach and duodenum are among the diseases that are greatly affected by the psychological state, and it worsens with the deterioration of the psychological state, especially with psychological stress and depression, as it improves with improvement. Ulcers are diseases that cause frequent troubles and pains, and make the lives of those who suffer from them a living hell. And these are not only ulcer problems, but ulcers are dangerous to the patient's life when they bleed or erupt.
And asthma intensify its troubles and severity with increased nervous tension. And other allergic diseases such as eczema and urticaria increase in severity with psychological stress, regardless of its cause. This also applies to psoriasis, a chronic skin disease that is affected by psychological conditions.
Rheumatoid arthritis, especially rheumatoid disease, worsens with poor mental condition. Joint inflammation, swelling and redness increase with the deterioration of the patient's psychological condition.
The human immune system is affected by his psychological condition, weakening and becoming less able to resist microbial and viral diseases. People become infected with infectious diseases and infections in all parts of the body, so it becomes highly contagious. In fact, the weakness of the body’s immune system, especially with psychological depression, makes the body less able to resist the cancerous cells that form in the body, but the body’s immune system resists and gets rid of them. As a result, the incidence of depressive patients who are not treated with cancerous tumors increases than those who do not suffer from depression.
The aforementioned diseases are affected by mental illness in the absence of treatment for mental illness. In the case of controlling and treating mental illness, the effect of these diseases on the organic disease disappears.
This was a brief summary showing how mental illnesses do not affect the mental health of the patient only in the absence of treatment, but also have a severe impact on his physical health.
On the other hand, organic diseases negatively affect the psychological state, especially chronic diseases. It has been proven that those who suffer from chronic organic diseases cause them trouble over the years, increasing the rate of mental illness to 30%. Thus, we see that mental health affects and is affected by organic health.
Dr. Ahmed Saafan
Transported