Toxic words are hazardous to your health

Auntie Melly was diagnosed with cancer. Dr. S. presented the diagnosis to her son who was then attending med school. The verdict: “Siguro, anim hanggang walong buwan(Maybe, six to eight months). Imagine the anxiety caused by these mere five words to a whole clan.

The son completed med school, was taking his residency in internal medicine when in a twist of fate happened to meet Dr. S., who greeted him:  “Kumusta na ang Nanay mo… buhay pa?” “(How is your Mom, still alive?). “Muntik ko nang bigwasan(Almost gave him a smack on the face) said the son, Gilbert, about this incident.

The apparently disconcerting, emotionally devoid “words” uttered by Dr. S. could have derailed Gilbert’s medical career. The good news is, Auntie Melly is well, still alive after several decades to see her two grandchildren grow up. Gilbert is a doctor in North Carolina; he’s my cousin, so I know.

Elusive

“Words matter,” was the favorite catchword during the last mid-term elections. A truism studied almost by every discipline, from anthropology to zoology. The elusive question is why?

Many practitioners of the healing art estimate that 50% to 80% of patients who consult medical doctors basically suffer from functional disorders. Disorders of this kind are thought to originate from the mind; often times no lucid or precise physiological basis could be established.

Mental experiences from insinuation, claim, rhetoric, oreven diagnoses — real or truth, erroneous, fake, or mere ideation — can interrupt or disrupt the normal systemic functions of the body known as homeostasis; something like an “internal thermostat.” Homeostasis includes the endocrinal and immunological balance, blood supply and pressure, respiration pattern, and digestive processes among others.

Studies show that in conjunction with other allied body systems such as the autonomic nervous system(ANS), psychological disequilibrium, homeostasis “disturbed” for whatever reasons, such as stress, could affect internal body activities to react or malfunction. Subsequently, this could lead to some form of seemingly pure-physical ailments such as peptic ulcer, asthma, and migraine (among trillion others).

Iatrogenic

Empirical studies reveal that daily bombardment of “words” (aka, news, blogs, rhetoric) by contemporary multimedia trolls and bots can take a toll or, present some kind of stress on anyone.

J. and F. Saunders as early as the ‘70s identified responses of body to stress.  Take peptic ulcer. This ailment from the excessive secretion of gastric acid that irritates, inflames, and ultimately breaks the stomach wall is caused by stress resulting from mental experiences.

In other words, an “unquantifiable mental experience” like stress could become a physiological ailment. New studies undoubtedly reveal that a certain dormant bacteria, Helicobacter pylori,in the stomach could be the culprit causing ulcer; nevertheless the mystique remains: What triggers the activation of these bacteria to cause harm?

Moreover,iatrogenic, an obscure or less-quoted term, is defined by the American Psychological Association’s Dictionary of Psychology as denoting or relating to a disease or pathological condition that is inadvertently caused by treatment.

‘Iatrogenic’ is probably the most despised term in medicine, also meaning an induced and/or aggravated medical condition due to a doctor’s diagnosis/misdiagnosis. Diagnoses are words presented by an assumed expert(doctor) to an assumed subordinate(patient).

Suggestibility

All human beings have an innate suggestibility, or proneness to suggestion.  Suggestion simply means presenting an idea to another often in an attempt to elicit motor, mental, or similar responses. People are deemed suggestible if they accept and act on suggestions by others.

A person experiencing intense emotions, according to Myers, author of various psychology books, tends to be more receptive to ideas, thus is more suggestible. Also, psychologists have identified that individual levels of self-esteem, assertiveness, circumstance, among others, can make some people more suggestible than others, as depicted in the following vignette.

Kenneth Arnold, while piloting his private plane near Mount Rainier on June 24, 1947, spotted nine glittering objects in the sky. Thinking these were foreign guided missiles (barely two years after WWII), he attempted reporting the incident to the FBI.

Unfortunately, the FBI office was closed; he instead went to his local newspaper reporting, “Crescent-shaped objects that moved like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water.” This was quoted by the Associated Press, then reported in more than 150 newspapers as the sighting of “saucers.” The term “flying saucers” was born, triggering a worldwide wave of “flying saucer sightings” during the rest of the summer of 1949.

The spread of such “affecting” information is common today due to the ubiquitous Internet. “Have you heard about the deepfaketechnology that will roil what remains of our consciousness?” inquired a tech-savvy kibitzer friend.

Moreover, who would believe that a tooth extraction could be done without an iota of anesthesia! Have you heard of hypnodontia, where hypnotic suggestion can zap excruciating pain during a dental procedure?

Whydo words matter? Sigmund Freud explained this 150 years ago.

Dr. Carson-Arenas is a Certified Clinical Psychology Specialist, and a former university research director. He is a Behavior Analyst Specialist in Nevada, an educator, clinician, researcher, consultant, and a published author. A certified hypnotherapists, he authored the book, Secrets of Practical Hypnosis, Illustrated (An Introductory Manual to Hypnotherapy), ISBN 9781449930769, USA; co-authored with his son, Allen-Chriss Williamson Arenas, a US Navy medical specialist.  Please e-mail at: [email protected].