How does worry cause illness? Controlled fMRI studies from Harvard and replicated elsewhere, have shown that imagining an event lights up the identical areas of the brain with the same intensity as actually experiencing the event ... and both events produce identical hormones (Ganis et al., 2004). In this way, chronic stress, in which one imagines alarming events, can create disease in a compromised area of the body.

Under chronic stress, which often involves guilt, worry, resentment or anxiety, heart rate, and blood pressure rise and stabilize at a higher level, arterial plaque is deposited, substances such as acetylcholine, adrenaline, sugars, fats, thyroxin, cortisol circulate freely, fat is deposited at the waist.