We speculate that chronic emotional stress may cause dopaminergic cell loss in susceptible individuals and propose that functional somatic syndromes are commonly seen in patients with PD. Dopaminergic dysfunction with abnormalities in striato–thalamo–cortical brain circuits may be the shared underlying cause.
Can stress trigger Parkinson's disease? - Cure Parkinson's
Can stress trigger Parkinson's disease?
Written by
Kia17
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47 Replies
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I absolutely believe that a long period of stress contributed to my PD, and have heard the same from others.
I agree, I think stress and anxiety play a bigger role than people realize. Managing stress is as important as exercise and diet.
Check out this article:
Occupational stress and risk for Parkinson's disease: A nationwide cohort study
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi...
Methods: We conducted a population‐based cohort study with 2,544,748 Swedes born 1920 to 1950 who had an occupation reported in the population and housing censuses in 1980 or, if missing, in 1970. Job demands and control were measured using a job‐exposure matrix. Incident PD cases were identified using Swedish national health registers from 1987 to 2010.
It doesn't look like there's a huge effect, but there is definitely an effect/correlation.
Is there any evidence suggesting that the reduction in stress leads to a reduction or reversal of disease progression? That would seem logical if this theory is true.
This is a group that will tell you you can reverse it and talk about how they have done it. They say it works for stress induced pd. I cant vouch for it but they have some interesting theories and therapies.
Thanks for sharing!
You might also be interested in following 'bassofspades'. he often posts on things stress related. this is my interest also. his last post is on the nervous system - i provided the link below. there is a post in this link by a gal in DENMARK that works with pd trauma related issues. the English is not great - assume its because of using a translator but you can see where she's going. others see the connection between trauma and pd too. 
Very interesting however doesn’t read well if you’ve taken any Parkinson’s meds for over 3 weeks though😢
She does have a book available on medications that may be useful. pdrecovery.org/once-upon-a-...
I have investigated Janice Walton-Hadlock's work. I am keen to hear from anyone who is interested or who has worked with her approach. Please get in touch.
She is definitely on the right track . If the cause of your pd is unknown, ie idiopathic, especially young onset, your source is very likely autonomic nervous system overload. In other words, psychological stress has built up in your subconscious to the breaking point.
SO what can we do?
What helps me is a daily journaling routine. 20 minutes every evening I write about childhood troubles, personality traits and the pressures of daily life. Be as truthful and introspective as you can. Get mad like your inner 5 year old is throwing a temper tantrum . Then delete or throw the paper away. Follow this with 10 minutes of mindful meditation. These techniques ladel out your subconscious rage from the reservoir that has built up inside since you were a child. Do it and check back with me in 4 weeks .
See my posts for more details, including books and videos I link that explain it further.
Good luck my friend! Don't let pd drag you down!
My background is I was diagnosed as young onset 6 yrs ago at 44 y o and I don't use prescription drugs. Just amino acid neurotransmitter precursors and thiamine. I work in health care full time and study neuroology and psychology as a hobby.
Check these articles on Outthinking Parkinson's. They use Polyvagal Theory to connect PD with a Trauma or Stress Reaction.
outthinkingparkinsons.com/a...
The first article proposed that Parkinson's Disease essentially occurs when the Dorsal (subdiaphragmatic, unmylinated) Vagus Nerve is permanently stuck in mediating the "Death Feigning" or immobilazation/freeze stress response.
This is remarkably similar to Janice Walton-Hadlock's main theory about Parkinson's Disease (pdrecovery.org). Two converging paradigms from different backgrounds.
Hi Elliot
I think everyone keen to know more about it. Please let us know here.
Many thanks , Kia
Kia this might be consistent with your theory about alpha synuclean plaque-producing proteins migrating up the vagus nerve from the gut.
Janice Walton-Hadlock has a few books available online for download as free pdfs.
In particular, I recommend Recovering from Parkinson's
pdrecovery.org/recovery-fro...
and the more recent Stuck on Pause
pdrecovery.org/stuck-on-pause/
Her main hypothesis is that people with Parkinson's are stuck in a particular neurophysiological mode.
She says that western medicine recognizes autonomic nervous system modes: parasympathetic (serenity and ease) and sympathetic (fight-flight). However, Chinese recognizes those two, plus two more: sleep and "Clinging to Life".
She says that people with Parkinson's are stuck in this latter mode. It is a sort of trauma response, or shutdown mode. She also calls it biological dissociation or "Pause".
(If you read closely in the last book, you will see that she actually differentiates true Pause from self-induced Pause. She says that most people with Parkinson's have the latter, and different mechanisms are required for turning it off.)
Stephen Porges is a western scientist who developed Polyvagal theory. What I find fascinating is that he came up with similar findings. He found empirical evidence that is actually a mode in the autonomic nervous system that hasn't previously been recognized in western medicine. He says that in addition to parasympathetic and sympathetic, there is a sort of shutdown mode. When confronted with very stressful situations, some people get a surge of energy, like fight-flight. But other people shut down and freeze.
Steven Porges says that people can get stuck in this shutdown mode, and that it can cause real problems.
What is powerful is that Janice Walton-Hadlock and Steven Porges developed their work independently. I don't think they have heard of each other.
The guy from Outthinking-Parkinsons is the one who made the connection between Polyvagal theory and Parkinson's disease. And as far as I know I'm the first person to make the connection between Janice Walton-Hadlock's work and polyvagal theory.
Thank you Elliot, for sharing. It was unsettling to realize that I’ve carried the feeling that I wasn’t safe and being alone pretty much my whole life. I am encouraged now from their work. Hadlock and Porges, both directed my attention to solutions.
Good question Jim. I think the answer to this question would cost a few million dollars if not billions.
I suffered from self-induced stress as a small business owner for decades. Looking back, it was all so unnecessary, but I was constantly in fight or flight mode. Howard Shifkin (sp?), who claims to have cured himself through Qigong and other means believes Parkinson's surfaces when fight or flight ends. I sold my business in November of 2017 and was diagnosed in May of 2018, so this theory intrigues me. Now that I'm mostly retired and stress level is nonexistent if not for Parkinson's, I honestly feel better...but whether it's all coincidental or causal is beyond me...
JC try the journaling techniques to process and relieve your subconscious of the rage and fear that it's holding on to. The subconscious mind knows no concept of the past, present and future. Anything that ever caused your sympathetic nervous system to feel anxiety is felt as though it is happening in the present! Good luck, dear friend!
Ironically, my only conscious source of rage and fear is my inability to write! Ha ha! Fortunately, I can still type so I'll do my best to identify and write, with the hope of freeing myself from subconscious stress. Thanks for the encouragement!
Dig deeper jc. Think about your personality and how the roots of it are driven by the need to avoid anxiety. Many Parkinson's patients have similar personality traits, such as stoicism, people pleaser, perfectionism, goodist.
Interesting you should mention stoicism. My ability to suffer insults in silence throughout my life has clearly not been a positive.
Have you consciously endured those “insults” ?
Often it was not consciously done but sometimes it was in full awareness because I had a 'higher goal' like trying to hold my family together. I see things retrospectively and I'm outraged I just took it on the chin at the time. I have no doubt that my P is due to long term emotional stress.
So very true...
All autoimmune diseases are actually disorders and not diseases . They are not caused by any out side agency . Whether it is Parkinson's , or diabetes , or schizophrenia , or Bipolar , or Huntington's , Anxiety neurosis , literally all are the psychosomatic diseases A dras tic change in life style , diet , physical exercise . a positive attitude on life would give relief from them . Any modern medicine does not help much in auto immune diseases .. If a medicine is given for one problem , while it is getting relieved , another new problem sets in . By the time we understand the seriousness of our problem we go to a point of no return .
ddmagee1 in reply to
Just wondering where you got that information from? Perhaps it should be investigated further.
in reply to ddmagee1
Some observational evidence associated with patients who are treated by homeopathy . Yes it needs further extensive investigative research which needs much effort , money and dedication .
Yes! I believe it can trigger Pd but it does not cause it. It can speed up up the progression of this condition and should be avoided or managed better.
I gave up my high-powered job the day I was diagnosed because running a large company was very stressful indeed. That was in 1992. As a result of doing fast walking and several other things I was able to stop taking any Pd medication in 2002 and have lived a normal life since then. I am now 84 and walked 7 kilometres this morning, which I do every second day. It takes me one hour.
This is truly interesting reading and studying. Thanks for sharing this with us Kia17. I know, in my situation, I had an extremely stressful job, for a number of years, that just got worse, as I got older. I can see where, plausibly, this could have likely contributed to my PD problems, which were diagnosed about 12 years after I retired. During my retirement years, I’ve also had a lot of stress, with my wife being seriously ill with heart disease and diabetes. So, I’m going to explore this further. Meanwhile, each day I work at stress relieving activities to help me cope.
Yes, we went through 10,000 earthquakes over a couple of years, then 3 years fighting our insurer to pay our claim.
Hi Kia,
I definitely believe that stress, chronic anxiety, are the root cause of a majority of PD patients.
The work of Janice Walton-Hadlock, something she applied to herself to heal, is really interesting on that particular aspect. Too bad this devoted women is not aware of what is called science.
There are to my knowledge at least 3 cases of total healing from that were controlled with DaTScan and followed for years. Even though it did not strike the neurologists, one was cured through meditation, the two others through psychotherapy. I found that in PubMeds.
I've said something similar before. Several PwPs have "cured" themselves through Dr. Joe Dispenza's meditations. We talked with him at a workshop in Miami in 2014 shortly after my husband was diagnosed. He said that there already had been several people who had done so. I've recently watched a youtube video of someone else who had started to reduce/eliminate their symptoms at one of his intensive workshops. Unfortunately my husband's hearing is not good and it's hard for him to listen to the meditation CDs. I use them intermittently and I always feel better. A real commitment is required to see any lasting change.
How Placebo Makes Parkinson's Disease Symptoms Disappear- Joe Dispenza
youtube.com/watch?v=Ob6mKmO...
Kia, oh my God yes!!!!
That's very interesting....i'd really like to read those studies. i don't suppose you'd have the PubMed links? tnks for sharing....
Xenos, would you happen to have links or article titles for the two cases you mention involving psychotherapy? I'm having trouble locating them on PubMed or Google Scholar. Thanks.
For those interested, here's the case where recovery was associated with meditation:
mindandculture.org/wordpres...
Hi,
I have been searching but was unable to find the case mentioning two female patients cured by "relieving their stress". The other one you have (the meditation case).
Nevertheless this could help :
- Can stress trigger Parkinson’s disease? Atbin Djamshidian, Andrew J Lees (BMJ)
- Identification of the Role of Distress and Personality in the Onset and Prevention of Parkinsonism:
A Study by BRIAN MAGRATH, Psychosomatic Therapist, New South Wales
- Stress, Depression and Parkinson’s Disease
Abstract
In this review, we focus on the relationship among Parkinson’s disease (PD), stress and depression. Parkinson’s disease patients have a high risk of developing depression, and it is possible that stress contributes to the development of both pathologies. Stress dysfunction may have a role in the etiology of preclinical non-motor symptoms of PD (such as depression) and, later in the course of the disease, may worsen motor symptoms. However, relatively few studies have examined stress or depression and the injured nigrostriatal system. This review discusses the effects of stress on neurodegeneration and depression, and their association with the symptoms and progression of PD.
Thanks Xenos for that info. Interesting stuff!
Kia, Thanks for posting the video! Frankly, in many ways it's a bit more than placebo if you read his books. His book Becoming Supernatural is a great one to read if you want to get deeper into the quantum physics of it all. Dr. Joe has actively monitored the people who have gone through his intensive workshops (we only did the intro workshop) - including the woman who was written about in You are the Placebo book. The Becoming Supernatural book discusses his research over several years with these people. People who truly became "supernatural." Having said that his process requires a lot more "work" than most people are willing to devote.
My tremor started during a period of high stress where I had already lost husband and home by divorce and added loss of security in the form of my retirement and betrayal by my ex of twenty years. This after years of being under control of an authoritarian.
I have always thought that trauma played a part. I lost my youngest daughter in a car accident and went thru a year of debilitating grief. Around 7 yrs later I got my first tremor. In my first pd exercise class of 6: three of us had lost a child. Anyone else have this experience of losing a child?
I'm convinced grief plays a part, my brother and I lost our mother suddenly during childhood, we both have PD
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