Hi 3T,
Yes! Absolutely. There are many known connections between the hormones that are produced ( or not produced ) in mental health conditions that can then make you feel sick and even cause long term health issues . There are also known medical conditions that can make you feel mentally unwell.
I will give you a couple of examples to illustrate this .
1. In anxiety, we pump out the fight/flight hormones like adrenaline and cortisol that help prepare our body to either punch up a predator or run like hell away from it! These hormones do things like increase heart rate, breathing rate, pump blood into large muscles and away from digestive tract, induce sweating and dilate pupils..Now in short bursts and in the right situation these could be life saving responses .. but if they happen 20 times a day and whilst just sitting around your office .. clearly your body starts to get unhappy as it wasn’t actually designed for this. The heart and blood vessels can get put under strain and you feel exhausted all the time!
2. In Thyroid disease, sometimes your body can produce excess of a hormone called “thyroxine” which can make you feel jittery , sweaty, lose your appetite , make it hard to sleep. These symptoms can mimic anxiety and some people can be misdiagnosed as anxious .
So in conclusion… the body can make you feel unwell in your mind and your mind can make you feel unwell in your body.
PS with Blood pressure - there are some connections with adrenaline in anxiety sending up BP so that one can get that into those muscles ...but many people have high blood pressure due to genetics or lifestyle factors without having mental health issues at all. It certainly would be interesting for you to try something like biofeedback to see if you could learn to relaxation techniques or mindfulness and get a lowering of your BP in response . Can’t hurt!
