Let's hear it for the common cold!
Saturday, September 20th, 2003 03:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robinturnerIt is a New Age commonplace that physical diseases are symptoms of mental stress or spiritual imbalance. Of course this is a wild exaggeration - I don't think a third of the population of Europe was wiped out by bubonic plague because they were stressed out or their chakras were blocked with negative energy. However, the psychosomatic element in disease is pretty well established - too much stress, worry, etc. is of course bad for your immune system.
what receives less attention, perhaps, is that this may actually be a good thing. If we're talking something like flu rather than cancer, the physical disease is often preferable to whatever psychological factors that had a part in its etiology. I've come down with a cold again, and since the initial fever broke yesterday evening, I've been as happy as, er, someone who has a bad cold and therefore doesn't have to do anything. "Robin can't go, he's ill." "Stay away from Robin, he's got a really bad cold." Suddenly my stress vanishes.
what receives less attention, perhaps, is that this may actually be a good thing. If we're talking something like flu rather than cancer, the physical disease is often preferable to whatever psychological factors that had a part in its etiology. I've come down with a cold again, and since the initial fever broke yesterday evening, I've been as happy as, er, someone who has a bad cold and therefore doesn't have to do anything. "Robin can't go, he's ill." "Stay away from Robin, he's got a really bad cold." Suddenly my stress vanishes.
