Gabor Maté

Can a person literally die of loneliness? Is there such a thing as a 'cancer personality'? Drawing on scientific research and the author's decades of experience as a practicing physician, this book provides answers to these and other important questions about the effect of the mind-body link on illness and health and the role that stress and one's individual emotional makeup play in an array of common diseases.

The Cost of Hidden Stress

When the Body Says No

Karolina

Illness not only has a history but also tells a history. It is a culmination of a lifelong history of struggle for self.

In order to heal, it is essential to gather the strength to think negatively. Negative thinking is not a doleful, pessimistic view that masquerades as "realism." Rather, it is a willingness to consider what is not working. What is not in balance? What have I ignored? What is my body saying no to? Without these questions, the stresses responsible tor our lack of balance will remain hidden.

Prescriptions come from the outside, transformation occurs within. Prescriptions assume that something needs to be fixed: transformation brings forth the healing—the coming to integrity, to wholeness—of what is already there.

Depressing read, most of it, but very informative and a strong call-to-action to prioritize mental health and how we process emotions -- whether we repress or healthily express them. 

Omar

Very informative and depressing and... Not a light read definitely. 

✨We do not go “from dust to dust,” we are dust enlivened. We are a part of the universe with temporary consciousness, but never apart from it ✨

🏔️ Others I have spoken with have reaffirmed their confidence in their traditional faith, or they meditate, or they commune with nature. Each seeks his or her own way to the light within and without.

Jovana Gjekanovikj 

Very informative and depressing and... Not a light read definitely. 

Favorite quotes:

✨We do not go “from dust to dust,” we are dust enlivened. We are a part of the universe with temporary consciousness, but never apart from it ✨

🏔️ Others I have spoken with have reaffirmed their confidence in their traditional faith, or they meditate, or they commune with nature. Each seeks his or her own way to the light within and without.

Nadine 

Interesting book which makes me more concerned about the quiet kind carers of the ill- also mars me wonder about who is more likely to get Covid in these times

Capucine Fachot

I don't usually take the time to write reviews, but if there's one book you aught to read, up until the end (because the themes are not easy, and can temper your disposition of the day, you might want to give up), it's this one. 

It's a revolutionary take and analysis of cancer and other fatal diseases. 


The last chapter gives you helpful points, it's not all doom & gloom.

Can a person literally die of loneliness? Is there a connection between the ability to express emotions and Alzheimer’s disease? Is there such a thing as a ‘cancer personality’? Drawing on deep scientific research and Dr Gabor Maté’s acclaimed clinical work, When the Body Says No provides the answers to critical questions about the mind-body link – and the role that stress and our emotional makeup play in an array of common diseases. When the Body Says No: - Explores the role of the mind-body link in conditions and diseases such as arthritis, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, irritable bowel syndrome and multiple sclerosis. - Shares dozens of enlightening case studies and stories, including those of people such as Lou Gehrig (ALS), Betty Ford (breast cancer), Ronald Reagan (Alzheimer’s), Gilda Radner (ovarian cancer) and Lance Armstrong (testicular cancer) - Reveals ‘The Seven A’s of Healing’: principles in healing and the prevention of illness from hidden stress

Elli Izo

I see a humble yet empowering attempt made by Maté throughout this read to serve the chronically stressed. I am no student of medical science, hence immensely value the very words thoughtfully weaved together in support of the lay public's understanding of the why's and how's behind the emergence of common diseases (such as esophageal/breast/ovarian/prostate cancer, ulcerative colitis, ALS and fibromyalgia). Understanding, by itself, as depicted by Maté, is a scarce commodity in the dance of generations. Paucity of understanding is, as he argues, ubiquitous in aspects of life a main source of problems. Between parents and children, spouses, partners, siblings and found amongst many more social contracts is that very paucity which forges psychological and biological traumas over years, sometimes the best years of one's life. Unfortunate as it already is to receive little understanding let alone support from people living under the same roof, the chronically stressed often also happen to amass poor understanding of the self. We don't know what we don't know, but we live in the consequences of what we don't know. The common thread connecting all patients Maté interviewed for the book is the subjugation of their needs, working intensely to fend for themselves, to appease others, to bid for approval and affection, starting from as early as birth. Executed enough times, the kindness we devise out of emotional desperation toward others eventually compromises the apparatus of the brain, in that our system no longer distinguishes attacks from appraisals from others, translating to dire physiological realities. Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe s/he meant it as a joke. Maybe it was all my fault. Maybe I shouldn't have been so sensitive all the time. Maybe I never was nor ever will be good enough. Maybe I was projecting my own thoughts... and, maybe, just maybe this all sounds so familiar to you that you must consider this read, see where Maté cuts in, dissects, analyses and communicates to the disadvantaged where the Nasrrudin in us should be looking for the key.

Personal Takeaways
 
a. The book allocated most of its pages to factual information, break-downs of case studies and research literature. However, to an extent, I was able to derive some guidance from it all, which helped pinpoint the source of my unexplained anger and anxiety, conducive to a better understanding of how some of my behavioural patterns came to be. I too waited many years (after I became my own person) to tell my mother about an incidence of sexual assault and all the wrong attention to me from a man when I was barely 7. It was a man my mother chose for her second marriage irrespective of my feelings. Each formative year I expended a great deal of mental energy to make sense of my family situation, or whom to trust/connect with/talk to, or where to look for parent substitutes to make my nightmares go away, was one year of an otherwise joie de vivre flushed down the drain. No real health concerns ever arose, but I remember always being the docile girl in every room who lacked vitality characteristic of her age. Everybody wondered why. Nobody inquired. 

I have loved and hated being able to identify with the voices of all patients interviewed for this book. They alert me to the importance of early fixes lest stress instigates physiological consequences, but they also literally burden me with sadness so profound I wish to travel back in time with what I now know to hold the child me, kiss her, comfort her and tell her she is pure and gold, wanted by the world and undeserving of all detriments, unlike what she's been told.

b. Anger, if experienced genuinely, results in its own extinguishment. It should be a process of allowing tension to dissipate; free expression of emotions but no acting out of unbridled rage. This is unfamiliar territory to me as I always thought of anger management as doing what one pleases to put to bed all unresolved emotions with no regard to consequences this creates for others or oneself. Only the relief should matter. I now understand that a healthy experience of anger comes in layers: 1. Negative thinking beats oafish optimism. Deafening is the popular belief that thinking positively alone alters our mindset and in turn alters our reality. What's truly positive is being able to recognise what plagues us, knowing how to confront our stressors instead of suppressing or ignoring emotions that keep eating away at us in the hope that we can will happy thoughts into taking over; 2. To undo self-defeating behavioural patterns, release of anger alone does not suffice. There are ways to set boundaries against those who keep us enmeshed in their own problems (yes, parents included), few of us who grew up emotionally depleted would say no to playing the 'caregiver' but we should. I don't feel as though Maté provided guidance on how to set boundaries against stressors such as a dysfunctional family and I'd recommend  Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents (Lindsay C. Gibson) as an insightful read to accompany this one. 


Overall, this 5/5 book is an integration of research and discussion on psychoanalysis, sociology and biology. Maté also remains philosophically rich in his prose. As of today, we breathe and speak charades as we navigate relationships at home, at work, and with the community we live in. We remain careful and dare not skip the dances. We study hidden rules and gauge how well or poorly we fare. We need to be liked and respected at the centre of everything we do. Is it any wonder that each day we endure a great deal of uncertainty-induced stress? Oh, and thanks to information asymmetry (the intensity of which varies with socio-economic factors), I may be correct in saying our loss of control of life is not partial, but complete. 

If each of us must maintain a weaponry required for combatting the physiological perils ingrained in modern living, I'm convinced Maté just raised the quality tenfold.

Sloan, Kara

Very accessible and highly informative. Not being from a medical background I was able to grasp the concepts described and understand the connections and inferences being drawn from the case studies presented. 
Recommend reading the entire thing, anecdotes and all. However, if you want the main gist, read chapter 7, 17, and 19.

JESSICA  DUMITRU

Laura Mei

Ember Skies

Colin Powell

Elena Favret

Hooman Rostami

Can a person literally die of loneliness? Is there a connection between the ability to express emotions and Alzheimer?s disease? Is there such a thing as a 'cancer personality??Drawing on deep scientific research and Dr Gabor Mate?s acclaimed clinical work, When the Body Says Noprovides the answers to critical questions about the mind-body link - and the role that stress and our emotional makeup play in an array of common diseases.When the Body Says No-- Explores the role of the mind-body link in conditions and diseases such as arthritis, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, irritable bowel syndrome and multiple sclerosis. - Shares dozens of enlightening case studies and stories, including those of people such as Lou Gehrig (ALS), Betty Ford (breast cancer), Ronald Reagan (Alzheimer?s), Gilda Radner (ovarian cancer) and Lance Armstrong (testicular cancer)- Reveals 'The Seven A?s of Healing?- principles in healing and the prevention of illness from hidden stress

Exploring the Stress-Disease Connection

Carmen Maria

Kate Lillie

Duality Diva

Ermin Celikovic

Barbara

Rana Saleh

Charlotte Dann

Andre Schweighofer

In this accessible and groundbreaking book -- filled with the moving stories of real people -- medical doctor and bestselling author of Scattered Minds, Gabor Maté, shows that emotion and psychological stress play a powerful role in the onset of chronic illness. Western medicine achieves spectacular triumphs when dealing with acute conditions such as fractured bones or life-threatening infections. It is less successful against ailments not susceptible to the quick ministrations of scalpel, antibiotic or miracle drug. Trained to consider mind and body separately, physicians are often helpless in arresting the advance of most of the chronic diseases, such as breast cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, and even Alzheimer’s disease. Gabor Maté has found that in all of these chronic conditions, there is a common thread: people afflicted by these diseases have led lives of excessive stress, often invisible to the individuals themselves. From an early age, many of us develop a psychological coping style that keeps us out of touch with the signs of stress. So-called negative emotions, particularly anger, are suppressed. Dr. Maté writes with great conviction that knowledge of how stress and disease are connected is essential to prevent illness in the first place, or to facilitate healing. When the Body Says No is an impressive contribution to current research on the physiological connection between life’s stresses and emotions and the body systems governing nerves, immune apparatus and hormones. With great compassion and erudition, Gabor Maté demystifies medical science and, as he did in Scattered Minds, invites us all to be our own health advocates. Excerpt from When the Body Says No “Only an intellectual luddite would deny the enormous benefits that have accrued to humankind from the scrupulous application of scientific methods. But not all aspects of illness can be reduced to facts verified by double-blind studies and by the strictest scientific techniques. We confine ourselves to a narrow realm indeed if we exclude from accepted knowledge the contributions of human experience and insight. . . . “In 1892 William Osler, one of the greatest physicians of all time, suspected rheumatoid arthritis to be a stress-related disorder. Today rheumatology all but ignores that wisdom, despite the supporting scientific evidence that has accumulated in the 110 years since Osler first published his text. That is where the narrow scientific approach has brought the practice of medicine. Elevating modern science to be the final arbiter of our sufferings, we have been too eager to discard the insights of previous ages.” From the Hardcover edition.

When the Body Says No The Cost of Hidden Stress

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