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Stress as a Healing Factor?
There is yet another side to the concept of stress, and that is the therapeutic use of it (especially in alternative or complementary therapy) using the triple features of load, strain and response (stress). For example, manipulative methods such as chiropractic and osteopathy have historically seen as one of their primary roles the removal of obstructions to normal function as they normalize mechanical restrictions. They also understand that under ideal conditions self-normalizing responses take care of the processes of restoration of functional and structural integrity following appropriate manipulative care. What research has shown is that it is the degree of ‘load’ which the therapist applies which decides whether or not a good end-result is achieved by the treatment.
Selye’s Evidence
In some of his early research, conducted in the 1930s, Hans Selye MD, demonstrated the homoeostatic process in action, with spectacular clarity. He observed, in experimental animals, a specific pattern of response to a variety of what he termed ‘noxious stimuli’. Whether he used poisons of one sort or another, intense heat or cold, radiation or mechanical trauma (i.e. ‘load’), he noted what he called a ‘stress-syndrome’ which involved, among other changes in adrenal and thymic activity and size, loss of weight, haemoconcentration, and sometimes intestinal ulceration. These changes are evidence of ‘strain’ and an inadequate ‘stress’ (self-healing) response, since where such problems had occurred, the homoeostatic mechanisms had clearly been overwhelmed and had failed to restore equilibrium – or health.
Selye made an important subsequent discovery following experiments in which the load factor involved the injection of noxious (poisonous) chemicals under the animal’s skin. Selye, not surprisingly, observed a degree of response which was directly related to the concentration of the poison. He also noted that if a second stress factor (additional load) was then introduced (brief exposure to intense cold, heat, immobilization etc.) to animals previously exposed to mild degrees of toxicity there was an improvement of the initial response with, for example, reduction of tissue damage and speedy healing.
If, however, the initial toxic load had been heavily concentrated with very marked lesions, the secondary stressor (load) caused a rapid increase and spread of tissue damage, frequently leading to necrosis and death. This time the ‘load’ and ‘strain’ had overwhelmed the potential for healing.
These observations led Selye to state the truth which had been revealed. This was the crucial experiment showing that stress can either cure or aggravate a disease depending upon whether the inflammatory responses to a local irritant are necessary or superfluous.’
Selye attempted to make clear that a stress response involved many variable factors based on the unique and idiosyncratic ability of the organism (person or animal) to respond to load and strain. The variable nature of the response is based on genetic and acquired characteristics and energy reserves.
Whether treatment involves having something done to you (manipulation, insertion of an acupuncture needle, a change in diet, psychotherapy, taking a substance (whether a herb, a drug, a supplement or even a homoeopathic dilution of a substance) the same rules apply. It is always the body which is being ‘asked’ to respond, and this makes the potential healing response, by definition, a stress reaction.
Without any doubt it is the response of the individual which decides whether or not healing takes place, and that response (triggered by an appropriate therapeutic effort, or simply by innate self-healing mechanisms) is modulated (made stronger or weaker) by the current state of susceptibility, vitality or ‘potential for response’.
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