Do you ever suspect that our emotions have more of a link to our physiological makeup than we realize? I have been contemplating the connection between worry and illness these past few weeks. I have begun the ever-uplifting search for a new job. With each interview I go on, comes the stress of deciding which job will be better, financially, emotionally and in terms of time constraints. Then I have to consider how to make the transition. Will I make enough money during training to sustain my financial needs? Will I be able to establish good working relationships with my peers and bosses? Is this even what I'm supposed to be doing?
On top of that, Derek and I have been doing projects on top of projects in order to make extra money and gain experience in our field. Each of these comes it's own limited-edition deadline, and crap load of work, planning, and the occasional (I use this term lightly) technical problem.
Add onto that attempting to pay off student loans and save for Christmas presents, and a possible trip to Edmonton over the holidays and you have pretty much the three main courses on my menu of worry. This is not to say that I don't have things to be thankful for, or that I am not managing quite well, but sometimes I get to wondering; When we don't feel our worry creep up on us, can it manifest in other ways?
I've known plenty of people who can't sleep when they're stressed, others who get sick to their stomachs, and some who just get so run down that they get ill each time. It just makes me wonder how many of our physical ailments are connected to our emotional state. Obviously this question has been asked by many before me, or we wouldn't be blessed with expressions of "don't worry yourself sick", however I am just curious if this question goes further than I have considered in the past. Perhaps I'm proposing that if we lived in a worry free Garden-of-Eden (pre-serpent of course) stasis, keeping our stresses to a minimal, perhaps we would never have to deal with illness?
Perhaps it isn't aspartame that causes cancer, but worrying that aspartame may be causing cancer that causes cancer? Maybe it isn't the fact that we aren't sleeping that gives us the cold, but worrying about the fact that we aren't sleeping that causes us to contract it? Clearly I don't even subscribe to this theory, or have any idea what I'm even talking about, but it is interesting to think about the amount of energy we are putting into worrying, and where that energy may be coming from.
Anyhow, now I'm rambling. I think I'm going to go worry about dyeing my hair to cover up the fact that I have more grey hairs than any twenty-four year old should ever have to admit to.