Yes, anxiety can make the muscles in your
esophagus spasm and temporarily stop
working . Anxiety can do even worse things
such as stimulate spasms of the coronary
arteries that can cause angina pectoris or
even infarct. The power and strange
abilities of human mind are unbelievable.
There is a group of psychiatric disorders
called "somatoform disorders". Somatoform
disorders convert psycho-emotional
suffering into a symptom of an organic
disorder, although there are no organic
changes present in that organ. In fact,
the patient is not ill but he thinks that
is ill (hypochondria).
There is another group of diseases called
"psycho-somatic diseases" wherein long
lasting psycho-emotional suffering causes
functional disorder first, followed by an
organic disorder later. Such diseases are
hypertension, peptic ulcer,
tireotoxicosis, irritable bowel syndrome,
colitis ulcerative, psychogenic asthma
....and others. The coommon thread among
them is that psychological factors are
important in their etiology.
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