A Psychosomatic illness is not an imagined illness. It is an illness that is influenced by someone's experiences - particularly stressful experiences - or by his or her reactions to those experiences. That is, something about the person's behavior or way of life influenced the onset and progression of the disease. Most illness are partly psychosomatic in this sense.
Prolonged stressful experience can damage the immune system and increase a person's vulnerability to a variety of disorders, ranging from minor infections to cancer. Emotions can also impair health in strange, round about ways: Many years ago a midwife delivered three female babies on Friday the 13th and announced that all three were hexed and would die before their 23rd birthday. The first two did die young. As the third woman approached her 23rd birthday, she checked into a hospital and informed the staff of her fears. The staff noted that she dealt with her anxiety by extreme hyperventilation that is deep breathing. Shortly before her birthday, she hyperventilated to death.
How did this happen? Ordinarily, when people do not breathe voluntarily, they breathe reflexively, the reflex id triggered by carbon dioxide in the blood. By extreme hyperventilation this woman had exhaled so much carbon dioxide that she did not have enough left to trigger reflexive breathing. When she stopped breathing voluntarily, she stopped breathing altogether. This is a clear example of a self fulfilling prophecy. The fact that the woman believed the hex caused it to be fulfilled. This is also a clear example of the indirect influence of emotions on health.
Prolonged stressful experience can damage the immune system and increase a person's vulnerability to a variety of disorders, ranging from minor infections to cancer. Emotions can also impair health in strange, round about ways: Many years ago a midwife delivered three female babies on Friday the 13th and announced that all three were hexed and would die before their 23rd birthday. The first two did die young. As the third woman approached her 23rd birthday, she checked into a hospital and informed the staff of her fears. The staff noted that she dealt with her anxiety by extreme hyperventilation that is deep breathing. Shortly before her birthday, she hyperventilated to death.
How did this happen? Ordinarily, when people do not breathe voluntarily, they breathe reflexively, the reflex id triggered by carbon dioxide in the blood. By extreme hyperventilation this woman had exhaled so much carbon dioxide that she did not have enough left to trigger reflexive breathing. When she stopped breathing voluntarily, she stopped breathing altogether. This is a clear example of a self fulfilling prophecy. The fact that the woman believed the hex caused it to be fulfilled. This is also a clear example of the indirect influence of emotions on health.
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