The human body is a system in which physiology and the psyche are closely interconnected. Pain in the body always affects our mood, and, conversely, intense fear can trigger an attack of nausea or diarrhea. Knowing what psychosomatic diseases are, their causes and treatment, you can significantly improve the quality of your life.
Doctors confirm that emotions can be the cause of somatic (bodily) ailments. And there is no mysticism in it. You can easily see a chain of interconnected processes that lead to illness from a psychological state to almost any example.
It is difficult to find exceptions to this rule: regardless of whether a runny nose bothers, a pain in the stomach or a sore throat, psychosomatics can be detected in any case. And you need to take care of your health, always remembering the role of a good psychological state.
What is psychosomatics?
The term “psychosomatics” is sometimes interpreted one-sidedly when a direct relationship is built between emotion and disease. So, suppressed anger can be called the main cause of stomach diseases, envy - liver pathologies, and so on. In this regard, it seems that this approach is unscientific, has no significant evidence, and therefore does not deserve attention.
In fact, psychosomatics exists and has long been proven. But the path of the body from emotion to illness extends a little longer.
Body reaction to emotions
Any emotion causes us a physical reaction: when we get angry, our muscles, mainly the shoulder torso, tighten. In order to supply tense muscles with blood, the heart begins to work faster, blood pressure rises. This entails changes in the depth and rhythm of breathing.
And if we feel fear, then our muscles also tighten, especially the legs. It is precisely because of this that at the moment of fear we can feel the “stiffness” of the legs - this is a consequence of muscle strain. The autonomic nervous system is included in the work, so a person can sharply feel a desire to empty the bladder or intestines (the so-called "bear disease").
A single case of anger or fear is not capable of delivering a serious blow to a healthy body. But if a person experiences negative emotions often, this causes his nervous system to rebuild, along with it the digestive, endocrine, immune system begins to work. As a result, negative experiences lead to the disease.
How to recognize a psychosomatic illness?
In most cases, psychosomatics does not immediately lead to organic damage. First, it becomes the cause of functional disorders, that is, the organ or system is healthy, but their activity is impaired. This can be compared to an unconfigured piano.
If a person experiences certain symptoms of the disease, and the doctor cannot detect it through laboratory and functional diagnostics, or the form, stage of the disease cannot give such a vivid picture - there is every reason to suspect the psychological aspect in the formation of the disease.
Psychosomatics and sore throat
If a person regularly hurts throat, psychosomatics will help to understand what is the matter. The throat is a multifunctional area of our body, it is involved in the process of eating, in speech, in breathing.
Therefore, pain can have a different nature: a person can feel pain when swallowing, a feeling that they are choking, throat. Based on these symptoms, you should look for the causes.
Pain when swallowing
Sore throat, like with angina, can be a sign of inflammation in the nasopharynx. And this will also be directly related to psychosomatics.
As mentioned above, the nervous system plays the main role in the formation of diseases provoked by a psychological state. If we consider the entire human body in a complex, we can see that only three systems control all organs at the same time: nervous, endocrine and immune. Their activity is closely related to each other, pathology in one system will certainly affect the work of the other two.
If, as a result of nervous experiences, a person’s immune system is disturbed, he can begin to hurt in any case: the slightest draft, the way from the car to the entrance in wet shoes or a sip of milk from the refrigerator will instantly cause a sore throat.
Others will advise a person to strengthen immunity, but it will bring minimal benefits: the nervous system will “pull” the immunity back, and until a person learns to cope with his emotions, experiencing them correctly, colds will haunt him.
Lump in the throat
When sore throats resemble the sensations of a lump in the throat, the cause may lie in diseases of the endocrine system, or rather, in the pathologies of the thyroid gland.
In other cases, the reason is that the human muscular system is so tense that the muscles literally squeeze the throat. In this case, the symptom will be closely interconnected with negative emotions: nervous, the person will experience “exacerbation”, and having calmed down, “go into remission”.
Sensation
In order to understand whether there is a relationship between the disease and the psyche, it is very important to try to correctly formulate the experienced feelings. Sometimes this is where the key lies.
For example, instead of saying “I have a sore throat”, I should put it another way: “I don’t get a piece in my throat”, “they took me by the throat” and so on.
Further, it remains only to imagine the sensations in the described situation. A piece in the throat does not crawl in a situation of intense fear, so a person should reflex in order to understand whether he has chronic phobias and whether his anxiety accompanies him.
The feeling that you are being held by the throat speaks of the restrictions that interfere with the person. For example, if he does not do what he would like. If a person has to work as an economist, and he wants to paint with watercolors. Blocking the creative process is not such a harmless thing that it might seem, it is quite capable of causing psychosomatic pathologies. Therefore, it is important to ask questions with maximum directness and give answers to them with no less frankness.
Who to contact?
If a person has a sore throat, psychosomatics may be the cause. But first of all, you need to contact a specialist in bodily ailments. In this case, to the otolaryngologist.
If the doctor confirms that the emotional aspect takes place in this case, then you need to contact a therapist. It is important to note that it is he who is engaged in the treatment of psychosomatic diseases, and not a psychologist or psychiatrist.
The therapist will help to find out what emotion has become a catalyst for the process, will tell you how to cope with the disease. Sometimes this process takes only a couple of sessions, and sometimes a person needs to go to the reception for months. In any case, life without psychological diseases and the resulting ailments of this is undoubtedly worth it.
Is there any medication?
For the treatment of psychosomatic disorders, as well as for somatic, drug therapy is divided into two parts: the main and symptomatic.
Symptomatic therapy is necessary in order to relieve the pain itself. For this, any sprays, anti-inflammatory lozenges, folk remedies can be used. If a psychosomatic illness has led to disturbances in the immune system, antibiotics and antiviral drugs may be required.
The main therapy includes drugs that regulate the nervous system. This may include sedatives and drugs to improve sleep, and even antidepressants. A psychotherapist, unlike a psychologist, has a higher medical education, so he will be able to distinguish situations in which the use of medications is necessary from those where you can do directly with sessions of psychotherapy.
Psychosomatics in children
If there is psychosomatics in adults, therefore, it may well be in children. Fortunately, this happens much less often, because the child is less constrained by the framework of morality, which does not allow him to express emotions and makes him accumulate nervous tension.
If the child could not beg the toy he liked from his mother in the store, he would most likely cry, thereby expressing all his indignation. This seemingly egregious behavior allowed the child to instantly minimize the risk of developing psychosomatics.
An adult cannot afford to cry because of the financial impossibility to buy, for example, a beautiful and expensive mobile phone. Moreover, having become upset, he is unlikely to go to spit offense at his acquaintances, so as not to look solid. And there is nothing surprising if after a while he discovers that he has a sore throat - psychosomatics has found a way out of the negative through the disease.
If the child nevertheless encounters a bodily ailment caused by nervous experiences, this requires the most serious attitude. The flexible psyche of children should not succumb to such situations.
For treatment, you need to turn to a good children's psychotherapist who will teach the child to express and live negative emotions correctly, not hiding them inside himself, but also not pouring on others. Be healthy!