--- title: "4 Blood pressure Quotes By Gabor Maté" description: "4 Blood pressure quotes by Gabor Maté. Plus more from Gabor Maté and more Blood pressure sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/651/gabor-mat-1410_adult-life_the-biology-of-potential-illness-arises_524562.png" --- > [“The biology of potential illness arises early in life. The brain’s stress-response mechanisms are programmed by experiences beginning in infancy, and so…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/gabor-mat/the-biology-of-potential-illness-arises-early-in-life-the-brain-s/) [Gabor Maté](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/gabor-mat/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/651/gabor-mat-1410_adult-life_the-biology-of-potential-illness-arises_524562.png) > [“The separation of mind and body that informs medical practice is also the dominant ideology in our culture. We do not often…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/gabor-mat/the-separation-of-mind-and-body-that-informs-medical-practice-is-also/) [Gabor Maté](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/gabor-mat/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3aa/gabor-mat-1410_american-society_the-separation-of-mind-and-body-that-inf_1029065.jpg) > [“The traditional hospital practice of excluding parents ignored the importance of attachment relationships as regulators of the child’s emotions, behaviour and physiology.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/gabor-mat/the-traditional-hospital-practice-of-excluding-parents-ignored-the/) [Gabor Maté](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/gabor-mat/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0a0/gabor-mat-1410_air-conditioner_the-traditional-hospital-practice-of-exc_1698251.png) > [“It may seem paradoxical to claim that stress, a physiological mechanism vital to life, is a cause of illness. To resolve this…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/gabor-mat/it-may-seem-paradoxical-to-claim-that-stress-a-physiological/) [Gabor Maté](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/gabor-mat/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/cd4/gabor-mat-1410_blood-pressure_it-may-seem-paradoxical-to-claim-that-st_1980005.png) ## Other authors on Blood pressure ## More by Gabor Maté > [“As parents who make every effort we can to raise our children in loving security, we do not need to feel more guilt than…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/gabor-mat/as-parents-who-make-every-effort-we-can-to-raise-our-children-in/) [Gabor Maté](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/gabor-mat/) > [“The fact is, we in this society are often quite removed from our own emotional reality.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/gabor-mat/the-fact-is-we-in-this-society-are-often-quite-removed-from-our-own/) [Gabor Maté](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/gabor-mat/) > [“Shame is the deepest of the “negative emotions,” a feeling we will do almost anything to avoid. Unfortunately, our abiding fear of shame impairs…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/gabor-mat/shame-is-the-deepest-of-the-negative-emotions-a-feeling-we-will-do/) [Gabor Maté](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/gabor-mat/) > [“Many adults have not attained maturity — have not mastered being independent, self-motivated individuals capable of tending their own emotional needs and of respecting…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/gabor-mat/many-adults-have-not-attained-maturity-have-not-mastered-being/) [Gabor Maté](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/gabor-mat/) > [Autonomy is impossible as long as one is driven by anything.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/gabor-mat/autonomy-is-impossible-as-long-as-one-is-driven-by-anything/) [Gabor Mate](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/gabor-mat/) > [“If a mother has eight children, there are eight mothers. This is not simply because of the fact that the mother was different in…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/gabor-mat/if-a-mother-has-eight-children-there-are-eight-mothers-this-is-not/) [Gabor Maté](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/gabor-mat/) > [“Without attachment, the parent succeeds at most in cowing a child into obedience, at the price of grave damage to the relationship and to…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/gabor-mat/without-attachment-the-parent-succeeds-at-most-in-cowing-a-child-into/) [Gabor Maté](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/gabor-mat/) > [“Attachment is our connection with the world. In the earliest attachment relationships, we gain or lose the ability to stay open, self-nurturing and healthy.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/gabor-mat/attachment-is-our-connection-with-the-world-in-the-earliest/) [Gabor Maté](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/gabor-mat/) > [“So what you've actually got is traumatized children. When children are traumatized that affects how they feel about themselves, which is deeply ashamed because…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/gabor-mat/so-what-you-ve-actually-got-is-traumatized-children-when-children-are/) [Gabor Maté](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/gabor-mat/) > [“Even without world wars, revolutions and emigration, siblings growing up in the same home almost never share the same environment. More accurately, brothers and…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/gabor-mat/even-without-world-wars-revolutions-and-emigration-siblings-growing/) [Gabor Maté](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/gabor-mat/) > [“We think that there are people who are normal over here, and then there’s the pathological ones who have depression, anxiety, addiction or schizophrenia…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/gabor-mat/we-think-that-there-are-people-who-are-normal-over-here-and-then/) [Gabor Maté](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/gabor-mat/) > [“One cannot get much more vulnerable than to expose oneself psychologically. To share oneself with another and then be misunderstood or rejected is, for…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/gabor-mat/one-cannot-get-much-more-vulnerable-than-to-expose-oneself/) [Gabor Maté](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/gabor-mat/) > [“The areas of the cortex responsible for attention and self-regulation develop in response to the emotional interaction with the person whom we may call…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/gabor-mat/the-areas-of-the-cortex-responsible-for-attention-and-self-regulation/) [Gabor Maté](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/gabor-mat/) > [“Peer-oriented children live in a universe of severely limited and superficial attachments. The quest for sameness being the least vulnerable way of attaching, it…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/gabor-mat/peer-oriented-children-live-in-a-universe-of-severely-limited-and/) [Gabor Maté](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/gabor-mat/) > [“The United States contains less than 5 percent of the world’s population but houses nearly a quarter of the world’s prisoners.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/gabor-mat/the-united-states-contains-less-than-5-percent-of-the-world-s/) [Gabor Maté](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/gabor-mat/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/blood-pressure/gabor-mat/#itemlist", "name": "4 Blood pressure Quotes By Gabor Maté", "numberOfItems": 4, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“The biology of potential illness arises early in life. The brain’s stress-response mechanisms are programmed by experiences beginning in infancy, and so are the implicit, unconscious memories that govern our attitudes and behaviours toward ourselves, others and the world. Cancer, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and the other conditions we examined are not abrupt new developments in adult life, but culminations of lifelong processes. The human interactions and biological imprinting that shaped these processes took place in periods of our life for which we may have no conscious recall. Emotionally unsatisfying child-parent interaction is a theme running through the one hundred or so detailed interviews I conducted for this book. These patients suffer from a broadly disparate range of illnesses, but the common threads in their stories are early loss or early relationships that were profoundly unfulfilling emotionally. Early childhood emotional deprivation in the histories of adults with serious illness is also verified by an impressive number of investigations reported in the medical and psychological literature. In an Italian study, women with genital cancers were reported to have felt less close to their parents than healthy controls. They were also less demonstrative emotionally. A large European study compared 357 cancer patients with 330 controls. The women with cancer were much less likely than controls to recall their childhood homes with positive feelings. As many as 40 per cent of cancer patients had suffered the death of a parent before the age of seventeen—a ratio of parental loss two and a half times as great as had been suffered by the controls. The thirty-year follow-up of Johns Hopkins medical students was previously quoted. Those graduates whose initial interviews in medical school had revealed lower than normal childhood closeness with their parents were particularly at risk. By midlife they were more likely to commit suicide or develop mental illness, or to suffer from high blood pressure, coronary heart disease or cancer. In a similar study, Harvard undergraduates were interviewed about their perception of parental caring. Thirty-five years later these subjects’ health status was reviewed. By midlife only a quarter of the students who had reported highly positive perceptions of parental caring were sick. By comparison, almost 90 per cent of those who regarded their parental emotional nurturing negatively were ill. “Simple and straightforward ratings of feelings of being loved are significantly related to health status,” the researchers concluded.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Gabor Maté" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/gabor-mat/the-biology-of-potential-illness-arises-early-in-life-the-brain-s/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/651/gabor-mat-1410_adult-life_the-biology-of-potential-illness-arises_524562.png", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/651/gabor-mat-1410_adult-life_the-biology-of-potential-illness-arises_524562.png", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/651/gabor-mat-1410_adult-life_the-biology-of-potential-illness-arises_524562.png", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“The biology of potential illness arises early in life. The brain’s stress-response mechanisms are programmed…” — Gabor Maté", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“The separation of mind and body that informs medical practice is also the dominant ideology in our culture. We do not often think of socio-economic structures and practices as determinants of illness or well-being. They are not usually “part of the equation.” Yet the scientific data is beyond dispute: socio-economic relationships have a profound influence on health. For example, although the media and the medical profession — inspired by pharmaceutical research — tirelessly promote the idea that next to hypertension and smoking, high cholesterol poses the greatest risk for heart disease, the evidence is that job strain is more important than all the other risk factors combined. Further, stress in general and job strain in particular are significant contributors both to high blood pressure and to elevated cholesterol levels. Economic relationships influence health because, most obviously, people with higher incomes are better able to afford healthier diets, living and working conditions and stress-reducing pursuits. Dennis Raphael, associate professor at the School of Health Policy and Management at York University in Toronto has recently published a study of the societal influences on heart disease in Canada and elsewhere. His conclusion: “One of the most important life conditions that determine whether individuals stay healthy or become ill is their income. In addition, the overall health of North American society may be more determined by the distribution of income among its members rather than the overall wealth of the society…. Many studies find that socioeconomic circumstances, rather than medical and lifestyle risk factors, are the main causes of cardiovascular disease, and that conditions during early life are especially important.” The element of control is the less obvious but equally important aspect of social and job status as a health factor. Since stress escalates as the sense of control diminishes, people who exercise greater control over their work and lives enjoy better health. This principle was demonstrated in the British Whitehall study showing that second-tier civil servants were at greater risk for heart disease than their superiors, despite nearly comparable incomes. Recognizing the multigenerational template for behaviour and for illness, and recognizing, too, the social influences that shape families and human lives, we dispense with the unhelpful and unscientific attitude of blame. Discarding blame leaves us free to move toward the necessary adoption of responsibility, a matter to be taken up when we come in the final chapters to consider healing.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Gabor Maté" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/gabor-mat/the-separation-of-mind-and-body-that-informs-medical-practice-is-also/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3aa/gabor-mat-1410_american-society_the-separation-of-mind-and-body-that-inf_1029065.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3aa/gabor-mat-1410_american-society_the-separation-of-mind-and-body-that-inf_1029065.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3aa/gabor-mat-1410_american-society_the-separation-of-mind-and-body-that-inf_1029065.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“The separation of mind and body that informs medical practice is also the dominant ideology in our culture…” — Gabor Maté", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“The traditional hospital practice of excluding parents ignored the importance of attachment relationships as regulators of the child’s emotions, behaviour and physiology. The child’s biological status would be vastly different under the circumstances of parental presence or absence. Her neurochemical output, the electrical activity in her brain’s emotional centres, her heart rate, blood pressure and the serum levels of the various hormones related to stress would all vary significantly. Life is possible only within certain well-defined limits, internal or external. We can no more survive, say, high sugar levels in our bloodstream than we can withstand high levels of radiation emanating from a nuclear explosion. The role of self-regulation, whether emotional or physical, may be likened to that of a thermostat ensuring that the temperature in a home remains constant despite the extremes of weather conditions outside. When the environment becomes too cold, the heating system is switched on. If the air becomes overheated, the air conditioner begins to work. In the animal kingdom, self-regulation is illustrated by the capacity of the warm-blooded creature to exist in a broad range of environments. It can survive more extreme variations of hot and cold without either chilling or overheating than can a coldblooded species. The latter is restricted to a much narrower range of habitats because it does not have the capacity to self-regulate the internal environment. Children and infant animals have virtually no capacity for biological self-regulation; their internal biological states—heart rates, hormone levels, nervous system activity — depend completely on their relationships with caregiving grown-ups. Emotions such as love, fear or anger serve the needs of protecting the self while maintaining essential relationships with parents and other caregivers. Psychological stress is whatever threatens the young creature’s perception of a safe relationship with the adults, because any disruption in the relationship will cause turbulence in the internal milieu. Emotional and social relationships remain important biological influences beyond childhood. “Independent self-regulation may not exist even in adulthood,” Dr. Myron Hofer, then of the Departments of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, wrote in 1984. “Social interactions may continue to play an important role in the everyday regulation of internal biologic systems throughout life.” Our biological response to environmental challenge is profoundly influenced by the context and by the set of relationships that connect us with other human beings. As one prominent researcher has expressed it most aptly, “Adaptation does not occur wholly within the individual.” Human beings as a species did not evolve as solitary creatures but as social animals whose survival was contingent on powerful emotional connections with family and tribe. Social and emotional connections are an integral part of our neurological and chemical makeup. We all know this from the daily experience of dramatic physiological shifts in our bodies as we interact with others. “You’ve burnt the toast again,” evokes markedly different bodily responses from us, depending on whether it is shouted in anger or said with a smile. When one considers our evolutionary history and the scientific evidence at hand, it is absurd even to imagine that health and disease could ever be understood in isolation from our psychoemotional networks. “The basic premise is that, like other social animals, human physiologic homeostasis and ultimate health status are influenced not only by the physical environment but also by the social environment.” From such a biopsychosocial perspective, individual biology, psychological functioning and interpersonal and social relationships work together, each influencing the other.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Gabor Maté" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/gabor-mat/the-traditional-hospital-practice-of-excluding-parents-ignored-the/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0a0/gabor-mat-1410_air-conditioner_the-traditional-hospital-practice-of-exc_1698251.png", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0a0/gabor-mat-1410_air-conditioner_the-traditional-hospital-practice-of-exc_1698251.png", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0a0/gabor-mat-1410_air-conditioner_the-traditional-hospital-practice-of-exc_1698251.png", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“The traditional hospital practice of excluding parents ignored the importance of attachment relationships as…” — Gabor Maté", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“It may seem paradoxical to claim that stress, a physiological mechanism vital to life, is a cause of illness. To resolve this apparent contradiction, we must differentiate between acute stress and chronic stress. Acute stress is the immediate, short-term body response to threat. Chronic stress is activation of the stress mechanisms over long periods of time when a person is exposed to stressors that cannot be escaped either because she does not recognize them or because she has no control over them. Discharges of nervous system, hormonal output and immune changes constitute the flight-or-fight reactions that help us survive immediate danger. These biological responses are adaptive in the emergencies for which nature designed them. But the same stress responses, triggered chronically and without resolution, produce harm and even permanent damage. Chronically high cortisol levels destroy tissue. Chronically elevated adrenalin levels raise the blood pressure and damage the heart. There is extensive documentation of the inhibiting effect of chronic stress on the immune system. In one study, the activity of immune cells called natural killer (NK) cells were compared in two groups: spousal caregivers of people with Alzheimer’s disease, and age- and health-matched controls. NK cells are front-line troops in the fight against infections and against cancer, having the capacity to attack invading micro-organisms and to destroy cells with malignant mutations. The NK cell functioning of the caregivers was significantly suppressed, even in those whose spouses had died as long as three years previously. The caregivers who reported lower levels of social support also showed the greatest depression in immune activity — just as the loneliest medical students had the most impaired immune systems under the stress of examinations. Another study of caregivers assessed the efficacy of immunization against influenza. In this study 80 per cent among the non-stressed control group developed immunity against the virus, but only 20 per cent of the Alzheimer caregivers were able to do so. The stress of unremitting caregiving inhibited the immune system and left people susceptible to influenza. Research has also shown stress-related delays in tissue repair. The wounds of Alzheimer caregivers took an average of nine days longer to heal than those of controls. Higher levels of stress cause higher cortisol output via the HPA axis, and cortisol inhibits the activity of the inflammatory cells involved in wound healing. Dental students had a wound deliberately inflicted on their hard palates while they were facing immunology exams and again during vacation. In all of them the wound healed more quickly in the summer. Under stress, their white blood cells produced less of a substance essential to healing. The oft-observed relationship between stress, impaired immunity and illness has given rise to the concept of “diseases of adaptation,” a phrase of Hans Selye’s. The flight-or-fight response, it is argued, was indispensable in an era when early human beings had to confront a natural world of predators and other dangers. In civilized society, however, the flight-fight reaction is triggered in situations where it is neither necessary nor helpful, since we no longer face the same mortal threats to existence. The body’s physiological stress mechanisms are often triggered inappropriately, leading to disease. There is another way to look at it. The flight-or-fight alarm reaction exists today for the same purpose evolution originally assigned to it: to enable us to survive. What has happened is that we have lost touch with the gut feelings designed to be our warning system. The body mounts a stress response, but the mind is unaware of the threat. We keep ourselves in physiologically stressful situations, with only a dim awareness of distress or no awareness at all.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Gabor Maté" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/gabor-mat/it-may-seem-paradoxical-to-claim-that-stress-a-physiological/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/cd4/gabor-mat-1410_blood-pressure_it-may-seem-paradoxical-to-claim-that-st_1980005.png", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/cd4/gabor-mat-1410_blood-pressure_it-may-seem-paradoxical-to-claim-that-st_1980005.png", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/cd4/gabor-mat-1410_blood-pressure_it-may-seem-paradoxical-to-claim-that-st_1980005.png", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“It may seem paradoxical to claim that stress, a physiological mechanism vital to life, is a cause of…” — Gabor Maté", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } } ] }, { "@type": "CollectionPage", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/blood-pressure/gabor-mat/#webpage", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/blood-pressure/gabor-mat/", "name": "Blood pressure Quotes by Gabor Maté", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/blood-pressure/gabor-mat/#itemlist" }, "primaryImageOfPage": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/651/gabor-mat-1410_adult-life_the-biology-of-potential-illness-arises_524562.png" }, "description": "4 Blood pressure quotes by Gabor Maté. 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