Seventy-five to ninety percent of all doctors visits are due to stress-related ailments and stress-related disorders. Chronic acute stress leads to an out of balance biochemistry with elevated cortisol and suppressed serotonin. These biochemical markers of stress in turn lead to ill health and psychosocial disorders. Consequently, stress plays a major causative role in both physical and mental health.

Stress can affect the onset of, or susceptibility to disease. It can also affect the progression or course of disease, even when there is another cause of the disease; and stress can affect one's recovery from disease.

Stress has been linked to:

• cancer
• diabetes
• breakdown in the immune system
• alcohol and substance abuse
• cardiovascular disease