Editor's comment: I've been a student of mind-body connection for 18+ years now and this is as good a commentary as I've read. No one - NO ONE - seems to respect the physical outcomes of stress. My basic "go to" emotion is anger, which is based in fear. And I spent the majority of my life never realizing what an impact that had not only on those I loved but on my own health. Now, I work to simply notice it as it comes up (it never will "go away") so that I may manage it more skillfully.
Excerpt: "Some types of stress can be stimulating and invigorating, mobilizing us into action and creative potency; others can be draining and incapacitating, leaving us frustrated and hopeless. This dichotomy of good vs. bad stress, Sternberg notes, is determined by the biology undergirding our feelings — by the dose and duration of the stress hormones secreted by the body in response to the stressful stimulus..."
http://www.dailygood.org/story/1142/the-science-of-stress-maria-popova/