How Unresolved Trauma Affects Our Physical Bodies

Dr. Lawrence Brass, MD, associate professor of Neurology at Yale Medical School completed studies of 556 veterans of World War II. He found that the rate of stroke among these veterans who were prisoners of war was 8 times higher than the stroke rate of soldiers who had not been captured.

Dr. Brass got confused because the stress hormones of these former POW that cause heart disease and stroke get elevated only a few hours after a stressful event. He concluded, "The stress of being a POW was so severe it changed the way these folks responded to stress in the future-it sensitized them."

With such kind of findings, I'm realizing more and more how we need to take our understanding of our stress further. It appears that often than not in many people, stress can cause disease years after the initial event.