When The Body Says No: The Hidden Cost of Stress by Gabor Maté

Emotions are more than just feelings; they are information about what is happening in one’s body. According to the American Psychological Association, emotions are conscious mental reactions (such as anger or fear) subjectively experienced as strong feelings. These feelings are usually directed toward a specific object and are typically accompanied by physiological and behavioural changes in the body.

‘When the Body Says No’ offers a scientifically proven connection between stress, emotions, and some of the common chronic diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, and multiple sclerosis. Through a series of case studies and stories, Maté highlights how emotional repression and chronic stress can manifest as physical illness.

The author critiques modern medicine for its growing detachment from patients' emotional experiences. As medical breakthroughs advance, Maté argues, healthcare professionals often neglect to explore how patients’ personal lives—their emotional history and daily interactions—affect their health.

In interviews conducted for this book, many patients revealed that their doctors had never inquired about their day-to-day lives or emotional struggles. This lack of curiosity, Maté suggests, prevents a holistic understanding of what the body may be trying to communicate through illness.

“The more specialised doctors become, the more they know about a body part or organ and less they tend to understand the human being in whom the body part or organ resides.”

One compelling case study involves Barbra Ellen, who was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was only twenty-seven years old. Her illness, Maté argues, originated from repressing her emotions from a young age. Growing up, Barbra felt her mother favoured her siblings and believed she could not express her feelings without upsetting her mother. She internalised her emotions, leaving her disconnected from her true sense of self.

The author emphasises that such patterns stem from how parents interact with their children, shaped by parents’ upbringing. “And the parents, too, were suffering and carrying the burdens of generations. There is no one to blame, but there are generations and generations who had lived to bear a part in the genesis of Barbra Ellen’s breast cancer.”

This intergenerational repression of emotions contributes largely to chronic stress and illness unless a generation consciously decides to break this vicious circle.

Maté also challenges the causes of other cancers. While tobacco is a well-known cause of lung cancer, he asserts that smoking alone cannot explain why lifelong smokers remain cancer-free while non-smokers sometimes develop the disease.  He argues that “for lung cancer to occur, tobacco alone is not enough: emotional repression must somehow potent the effect of smoke damage on the body.”

In the chapter ‘Is there a “cancer personality”?’, the author explores types of personalities: type C, type A and type B and their connections to various cancers. According to the author, type A are seen as angry, tense, fast, aggressive and in control; type B is balanced and expresses emotions healthily; and type C are easy-going, extremely cooperative, and passive, lacking assertiveness and emotionally repressive. 

Maté suggests that type C are more prone to cancer due to their tendency to suppress negative emotions and struggle to say no. He, however, cautions that “it is stress—not personality per se that undermines a body’s physiological balance and immune defences, predisposing to disease.”

The book highlights how the environment shapes these personality types early on.  Children raised in nurturing and expressive families are more likely to develop healthy emotional regulation (type B). Contrarily, an emotionally repressive environment usually leads to traits associated with type C.

The author provides seven healing principles to help readers reclaim their physical and emotional health. These include acceptance—the willingness to recognise and accept how things are.

Awareness and Autonomy are the other healing principles: knowing and governing yourself. Another principle is recognising and expressing anger without letting it control you.

The most crucial principle is attachment—the ability to build healthy and positive relationships with others. In many cases presented in this book, people with positive relationships had better chances of healing.

Assertion and affirmation are the final principles of healing. “Beyond acceptance and awareness, beyond the experience of anger and the unfolding of autonomy, along with the capacity for attachment and the conscious search for contact, comes assertion: it is a declaration to ourselves and to the world that we are and that we are who we are.”

‘When the Body Says No’ is a challenging but enriching read. It invites readers to reflect on how they relate to others and how they can stay healthy by listening to what their bodies are communicating.

What would your life look like if you cared for yourself as much as you care for others? How would it change if you placed your needs and emotional well-being first?

Jane Shussa is passionate about books, coffee, nature, and travel. She serves as a Senior Digital Communications Officer for Twaweza East Africa.