How Depression & Anxiety Affect The Body

Mental Stress Can Aid Disease, Hit Fightback

- ​​​​​​​Jane E. Brody

It’s no surprise that when a person gets a diagnosis of heart disease, cancer or some other life-limiting or lifethreatening physical ailment, they become anxious or depressed. But the reverse can also be true: Undue anxiety or depression can foster the development of a serious physical disease, and even impede the ability to withstand or recover from one.

The human organism does not recognise the medical profession’s artificial separation of mental and physical ills. Rather, mind and body form a two-way street. What happens inside a person’s head can have damaging effects throughout the body, as well as the other way around. An untreated mental illness can significantly increase the risk of becoming physically ill, and physical disorders may result in behaviours that make mental conditions worse.