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Recently in Salon Health & Body

Urge
The voices in my head
They've been narrating my sexual fantasies and calling me names since I was 9, and that's ... OK.
By Cary Tennis
[03/18/00]

A drinking rant
A former bartender on amateurs, hangovers, Russians and believing you're Irish.
By David Bowman
[03/17/00]

Homeopathy
It's not wizardry; in fact, it's based on the same principle as vaccination.
By Debra Ollivier
[03/16/00]

Spongeworthiness
The Today Sponge survives the strange saga of its five-year disappearance.
By Jenn Shreve
[03/15/00]

Methadone Rx
Your local pharmacy may be the next place to treat heroin addicts.
By Harry Jaffe
[03/14/00]

Complete archives for Health & Body

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I contemplate the Eastern practice of sitting, envision monks in the lotus position, eyes closed, mind clear. Maybe meditation works for others, but my mind is stubborn, resistant, a steel bar that will not bend to my will. I realize that my racing mind may be ruining my health.

Since information is my latest pacifier, I punch up Medline to see how bad stress really is. There are so many articles that I go into speed-reading mode. I scan a hundred, remember none and wonder about early dementia.

Take a deep breath, my inner voice warns, annoying me. I know that. You don't have to tell me, I tell myself before I become engrossed in the sociobiology of stress.

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You turn a corner and are accosted by a mugger. Your body responds with a "fight or flight" outpouring of adrenaline and cortisol (the naturally occurring cortisone secreted by the adrenal gland). You make it safely to your car, outrunning the overweight, out-of-shape mugger. If you were a zebra that had just outrun a lion, you would relax and return to daily zebra business, with no accompanying implications. And, if you were a zebra, your stress hormone levels would quickly return to normal.

But we are human. Most of us don't or can't let such a terrifying event go. We imagine a host of what ifs. We ruminate, develop opinions, carry grudges, consider carrying a gun for self-defense, join support groups, become political activists. The event grows in importance, acute becomes chronic, our stress hormones remain sky-high. It is this chronic stress hormone elevation that does us in.

There is no uniformity of opinion as to the physiology of stress, but let's look at some recent provocative studies.

Scientists at Bristol University, England, injected newborn rats with an extract of bacteria sufficient to create a brief, mild fever. The rats recovered and resumed normal development. But as adults, when exposed to stressful laboratory conditions, they produced markedly elevated levels of stress hormones compared to a control group.

In a second study, newborn rats were briefly removed from their mothers' care, then returned to the mother. Again, the animals developed abnormal stress responses that persisted into adulthood. In both studies, chemical analysis revealed higher brain levels of corticotrophin-releasing hormone (the brain-generated hormone that stimulates the adrenal gland to release cortisol).

The sad conclusion: a brief toxic event in early life (either physical or psychological) condemned the animals to a lifelong excessive stress response. At present the main mechanism seems to be the generation of increased amounts of brain cortisol. (Note the similarity to neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux's observation in "The Emotional Brain" that a single childhood trauma can produce a chronic lifelong tendency toward anxiety.)

Next page | Dwelling on the negative has physical effects