Physical manifestations of psychological stress

Somatized manifestations of psychological stress are essentially physical and mental reactions in which unnoticed and unexpressed psychological stress and emotional conflicts are transformed into physical symptoms. All symptoms have no corresponding organic pathological changes. The core inducement is psychological factors rather than physical disease itself. To put it bluntly, you have searched all the corresponding departments, taken X-rays, and done tests, but you can’t find any corresponding physical problem. However, the pain and discomfort are real, and the root cause is that you have accumulated too many emotions that you have not poured out.

Speaking of this, I remembered a visit from an Internet operator I met last month. She suffered from migraine for almost half a year and had three brain CT scans. Even the neurologist advised her to go to the psychosomatic department for a check-up. She still felt that she didn't get enough rest. Later, we talked about the time of each migraine attack, which happened to coincide with the review of the big promotion plan and the calculation of team KPIs. She was used to gritting her teeth no matter how much pressure she was under. She didn't even realize that every time she made a plan, her back molars were gritted so hard that her shoulders and neck were as tight as a fully drawn bow. There was no place for the pressure to go, so it all went to her head to "sound the alarm."

Different schools of thought actually have different emphasis on explanations of somatization, and there is no absolute right or wrong. The school of psychoanalysis will think that this is the "replacement mechanism" of the subconscious mind - you cannot face the emotions of "I may not be able to handle this task" or "I am angry with someone but I dare not say it", so you replace the stress with physical pain, so that you do not have to face the psychological conflicts that make you embarrassed. To put it bluntly, it is a kind of subconscious self-protection. The perspective of the cognitive behavioral school is more on the physiological level: under long-term stress, the regulatory function of the autonomic nervous system will be messed up, just like the light switch in your home is broken, it will not light up when it should be on, and it will not go off when it should be off. The secretion of neurotransmitters such as serotonin and norepinephrine will be disordered, which will naturally cause reactions such as headaches, chest tightness, and stomach pain. The explanation of traditional Chinese medicine is more straightforward: emotions cause disease, thinking hurts the spleen and anger hurts the liver, worrying about performance every day makes you unable to eat, and problems with the spleen and stomach occur first. ； If you always hold your breath and have nowhere to vent it, you will easily suffer from chest tightness and hypochondriac pain and something stuck in your throat, which is often referred to as "plum core qi".

Many people have a misunderstanding about somatization. They think that only serious cases such as fainting and body pain are considered serious cases. In fact, this is not the case. When you were in school, did you get diarrhea when it came to major exams? Before the interview, your heart beats so fast that you feel like you're about to burst out of your chest, or even vomiting acidic water in your stomach? The child at home has a fever as soon as school starts. He goes to the hospital for blood tests and all are normal. When he comes home from leave, he immediately jumps around and plays with his tablet? These are the most common mild somatic reactions, but most of the time we classify them as "bad food" and "poor resistance" and don't think about stress. I met a middle school teacher a while ago who suffered from chronic pharyngitis for more than half a year. She took various anti-inflammatory drugs and throat lozenges to no avail. Later we talked and found out that she was a junior high school student for the first half of the year. She was afraid of affecting the students' emotions, so she was holding back a lot of anger. Later, she started taking a detour from get off work for half an hour every day, talking about anything she felt unhappy on the way. Within a month, most of her pharyngitis was cured.

Don't underestimate these little signals. This is your body telling you to stop.

Of course, there are now two extreme views, which I have to explain: One is that "somatization is malingering." This is a very wrong perception - the pain and discomfort felt by patients are completely real and are not subjectively pretended. However, they themselves are not aware of the connection between symptoms and psychological stress. Instead, they will become more anxious because they cannot find out the cause, and fall into a vicious cycle of "the more pain, the more anxiety, and the more anxiety, the more pain." Casually labeling people as "malingering" will only push them into a worse situation. There is also the belief that "you can get better immediately just by getting psychological counseling", which is not objective. If the physical symptoms are long-term and last for more than half a year, such as chronic pain, long-term insomnia, and frequent heart discomfort, many of them are already accompanied by neurotransmitter disorders. In this case, it is best to go to a psychosomatic department first, and cooperate with medication if necessary, and then use psychological intervention to find the root of the emotion. The effect will be better. There is no need to think that going to a psychosomatic department means you are "mentally ill." This is the same as prescribing cold medicine when you have a cold.

In fact, our body is much more honest than our brain. The brain will lie to you "I can handle it if I am fine" for the sake of face, responsibility, and other people's expectations, but the body will not. Those inexplicable migraines, chronic pharyngitis that cannot be cured, being unable to fall asleep even if you are extremely tired, and your stomach hurting when you are nervous, are essentially like the low-battery reminder that pops up on your mobile phone - it is not that there is a problem with the screen, but that there are too many unclosed programs running in the background, which consumes your battery. Next time you encounter this kind of unexplained discomfort, don't rush to call yourself "pretentious", and don't panic whether you have an incurable disease. Stop and touch the painful area and ask yourself if you have been carrying too many unspoken things recently. Maybe if you stop and calm down, the pain will go away.