In today's excerpt--the effect of stress on sickness and
disease:



"Under stress, the adrenal glands release cortisol,
one of the hormones the body mobilizes in an
emergency. ... If our cortisol levels remain too high for
prolonged periods, the body pays a price in ill health.
The chronic secretion of cortisol (and related
hormones) are at play in cardiovascular disease and
impaired immune function, exacerbating diabetes and
hypertension, and even destroying neurons in the
hippocampus, harming memory. ...



"Enter Sheldon Cohen, a psychologist at Carnegie
Mellon University who has intentionally given colds to
hundreds of people. Not that Cohen has a malicious
streak--it's all in the interest of science. Under
meticulously controlled conditions, he systematically
exposes volunteers to a rhinovirus that causes the
common cold. About a third of people exposed to the
virus develop the full panoply of symptoms, while the
rest walk away with nary a sniffle. The controlled
conditions allow him to determine why. His methods
are exacting. ...



"We know that low levels of vitamin C, smoking, and
sleeping poorly all increase the likelihood of infection.
The question is, can a stressful relationship be added
to that list? Cohen's answer: definitely. Cohen
assigns precise numerical values to the factors that
make one person come down with a cold while
another stays healthy. Those with an ongoing
personal conflict were 2.5 times as likely as the others
to get a cold, putting rocky relationships in the same
causal range as vitamin C deficiency and poor sleep.
(Smoking, the most damaging unhealthy habit, made
people three times more likely to succumb.) Conflicts
that lasted a month or longer boosted susceptibility,
but an occasional argument presented no health
hazard. ...




"While perpetual arguments are bad for our health,
isolating ourselves is worse. Compared to those with
a rich web of social connections, those with the fewest
close relationships were 4.2 times more likely to
come down with a cold, making loneliness riskier
than smoking. The more we socialize, the less
susceptible to colds we become. This idea seems
counterintuitive: don't we increase the
likelihood of
being exposed to a cold virus the more people we
interact with? Sure. But vibrant social connections
boost our good moods and limit our negative ones,
suppressing cortisol and enhancing immune function
under stress. Relationships themselves seem to
protect us from risk of exposure to the very cold virus
they pose."



Daniel Goleman, Social Intelligence,
Bantam, Copyright 2006 by Daniel Goleman, pp. 225-
230.