When Relationships Make You Sick

I spent some time in Florida a couple of weeks ago. I loved the sunshine and warmth! But more than that, I loved the people I was with! Even though I injured my leg in a bike accident, I came home feeling refreshed. We laughed and cried. We took walks and sat in the sun. We listened, and we talked. We remembered God’s faithfulness as we considered the past, present, and future. We bonded even deeper as friends.
But not every relationship has that positive impact on us. The mind and body are deeply connected, and what happens in our emotions and relationships directly impacts our physical health. As women, we often carry a heavy load—caring for our families, managing our homes, and sometimes dealing with difficult relationships that drain us emotionally.

The connection between emotional and physical health.

When we experience chronic stress, especially from unhealthy relationships, it doesn’t just stay in our minds—it affects our entire body. God designed us as whole beings, where our thoughts, feelings, and physical health are intertwined. When we nurture peace and emotional well-being, our bodies respond positively, but when we live in constant stress, our health can suffer.
When we find ourselves in difficult relationships, our bodies perceive it as a threat. This triggers our built-in stress response, also known as the "fight-or-flight" reaction. While this response is meant to protect us in dangerous situations, when it's activated too often due to emotional strain, it leads to chronic stress. Feeling unappreciated, unheard, or constantly walking on eggshells can keep our bodies stuck in this heightened state of stress, making it difficult to relax, sleep, and even think clearly. Over time, this stress depletes our energy and makes us more susceptible to illness.
One of the biggest culprits behind these physical symptoms is cortisol, our main stress hormone. When we’re under constant stress, our bodies release too much cortisol, which can wreak havoc on our health. High cortisol levels can lead to hormone imbalances, fatigue, weight gain (especially around the belly), anxiety, irritability, and even digestive issues. Many women dealing with chronic stress from difficult relationships also struggle with irregular cycles, thyroid imbalances, and trouble sleeping—all of which can be linked back to the effects of prolonged stress on the body.

Common physical symptoms of unhealthy relationships

Take time to listen to your body. Notice how your body responds to different relationships. Do you feel relaxed or rejuvenated? Perhaps you feel encouraged and energetic. But maybe you find yourself feeling angry or hurt. Maybe you are exhausted. Maybe your stomach hurts, or you find yourself taking shallow breaths. Your body will speak through symptoms to alert you to how relationships are affecting you.
If you find yourself experiencing headaches, stomach upset, muscle tension, or other symptoms after spending time with certain people, you may want to reconsider your interactions in the future. I am not suggesting that you cut off relationships just because they are hard. Even good relationships can have difficult moments! But I always recommend that someone remove themselves from a dangerous or abusive relationship.

Breaking the Cycle and Healing

Recognizing unhealthy relationship patterns is the first step toward healing. Take time to reflect on how certain relationships make you feel. Prayerfully ask God for wisdom and clarity in identifying these patterns. Journaling your thoughts and emotions can also help you see where stress is coming from and how it’s affecting your body.
Once you’ve identified the sources of stress, it’s time to take action. Setting healthy boundaries is crucial for both emotional and physical well-being. This may mean learning to say no, limiting time with certain individuals, or seeking support from trusted friends, mentors, or a therapist. Christian counseling can provide valuable tools for navigating difficult relationships while staying true to your faith. If communication is a struggle, practicing calm, assertive conversations and expressing your needs can help foster healthier connections.
Sometimes, the relationship challenge originates within us. We can feel angry, hurt, and bitter toward someone who has offended us. Your body can respond with irritability, tight muscles, and fatigue when you are around the offender. Healing may require forgiveness—not necessarily for the other person’s benefit, but for your own peace.
Self-care is not selfish; it’s a necessity, especially for women who pour so much into others. Nourishing your body with whole foods, getting enough rest, and engaging in activities that bring joy—whether it’s taking a walk, doing something creative, or spending time with God—can help restore balance. Herbal remedies like adaptogens (such as ashwagandha or holy basil) can support the body’s stress response, while deep breathing and relaxation techniques can help lower cortisol levels. Taking small, consistent steps toward self-care can make a huge difference in how you feel physically and emotionally and prepare you for the moments when relationships are challenging.
You are not meant to live in a constant state of stress and exhaustion. God designed you for peace, joy, and a thriving life. By addressing the emotional burdens weighing you down and taking steps toward healing, you can reclaim your well-being—body, mind, and spirit. Start today by choosing one small step toward emotional and physical renewal. The journey may not always be easy, but with faith, wisdom, and intentional care, you can walk forward toward healthy relationships so your body can heal.

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Why the News Is Wearing You Out (And It's Not Your Imagination)

By Rachel Rauch • September 8, 2026

Do you ever feel like life is moving faster than you can keep up with? I do. So I went digging into the history of how news actually traveled, and it turns out I wasn't imagining things. Life really has sped up. Let me walk you through it, because it explains more about your body than you'd think. In 1776, news moved at the speed of a horse or a ship, and sometimes slower than the war it was reporting on. The Treaty of Ghent was signed in December 1814, but it took six weeks to cross the Atlantic. Andrew Jackson fought the Battle of New Orleans two weeks after the war it belonged to had already ended. The telegraph closed that gap. The Associated Press started in 1846, when five New York papers pooled money for a courier-and-telegraph relay to beat each other on Mexican-American War news. By the 1870s, the AP wire was the backbone of newspapers coast to coast. When the first working transatlantic cable went in in 1866, European news reached city readers by the next morning. Rural readers, stuck waiting on the mail train, stayed weeks behind. Radio and television took over in the 20th century, still riding on the AP wire underneath. Overseas footage could reach American living rooms the same day. Cable news pushed that down to real time — by September 11, 2001, people watched history happen live instead of waiting for the evening broadcast. Today the lag is seconds, and the source is usually a stranger's phone, not a newsroom. Wire services and reporters still do the actual digging, but social platforms and algorithmic feeds decide what you see first, and they usually beat professional verification to the punch. Speed isn't the problem anymore. Knowing what's true before you share it is. Here's what that means closer to home. A woman in 1776 spent her day on what was in front of her: feeding her family, supporting the war effort locally, running her house. Her stress was real, but she wasn't carrying Africa's wars or Asia's famines on top of it, because by the time that news arrived, it was already over. Even through World War II, women served their cause by investing in their own community. Worldwide events they couldn't touch were, for the most part, not part of their daily awareness. And when they were, it came through black-and-white photos and print — sterile, one step removed. Even the six o’clock news felt at a distance most nights. Social media changed that. Now a plea to save trafficked children and a plea to save dying coral reefs show up back to back in the same scroll. We watch villages in Africa pillaged by rebels, children starving as civil wars tear countries apart, cities flattened by earthquakes and wildfires — all shot on the phones of people living through it in real time. Every influencer has a cause, and plenty of them want you to feel something urgent enough to act, whether that's guilt, outrage, or a call to fix something four thousand miles away. I'm not minimizing what any generation before us dealt with. I'm giving you context for what makes ours different. When women in earlier generations felt worried, they could point that adrenaline at something in front of them and actually do something about it. Now, every time we watch a crisis unfold somewhere we have no power to change, our body still releases the same stress hormones it always has — as if we were about to step into that crisis ourselves. Except we can't. Your body doesn't know the difference between a threat in your kitchen and a threat on your screen. It reacts the same way either time. And it's not just the news — it's the constant hum of social media running in the background of your day, quietly keeping your body braced for something it will never actually need to respond to. That's a real cost. It pulls from the same reserves your body needs for the stress you can't avoid. If you're anxious most of the time, short-tempered in a way you don't like, sleeping poorly, or dealing with digestive issues that won't resolve, social media and the news cycle may be part of what's driving it. Try a sabbatical — no social media, no podcasts, no news, even for a few days. Let your brain settle. Let your attention come back to what's actually in front of you, and notice whether your body feels different. When you're ready to bring news back in, I'd point you to The Pour Over. It's non-partisan, comes with Scripture and prayer built in, and delivers everything in short pieces — enough to stay informed without getting pulled into the emotional undertow of events you have no way to change.

Nothing Is Certain Except Death, Taxes, and How Your Body Handles Uncertainty

By Rachel Rauch • August 25, 2026

You've probably heard the line, "Nothing is certain except death and taxes." It's usually attributed to Benjamin Franklin, who wrote it to the French scientist Jean-Baptiste Le Roy — expressing his own anxiety about not hearing from Le Roy for over a year during the chaos of the French Revolution. Every era has its uncertainty. But is it just me, or does the world feel more uncertain lately? Maybe it's the upcoming midterm elections. Maybe it's the unrest in the Middle East. Maybe contagious viruses just feel more ominous since COVID. And then the news serves up one terrible headline after another that I wasn't even thinking about until I read it. Maybe current events barely register for you, but you still struggle to feel safe because of something that happened to you, or to someone you love. It's hard to feel certain about anything after what you've been through. If that's you, I am truly sorry, and I lament with you in that! Here's what's actually happening in your body: uncertainty triggers the same stress response as a real physical threat. You have a small gland in your brain called the amygdala, and it interprets ambiguity the same way it interprets danger. Your body responds accordingly — racing heart, shallow breathing, sweating, blood rushing to your limbs. At the same time, the amygdala suppresses your prefrontal cortex, which slows your thinking and makes it harder to make decisions or regulate your emotions. Live in that state long enough, and it becomes an allostatic load on your body: chronically elevated cortisol, a suppressed immune system, more inflammation, reduced digestive capacity, and hormones out of balance. You might also notice more anxiety, more fatigue, and everyday tasks feeling like more than you can carry. I wish we could avoid uncertainty. I think you do too. We are finite people held in the hands of an infinite God. Some days I catch myself thinking that if my life had no uncertainty, I'd be less stressed. Deep down, though, I know that's not true. No uncertainty would mean I'd know everything — including every scary thing headed my way — and that would stress me out more, not less. So if uncertainty isn't going anywhere, how do we keep it from wrecking our bodies? Limit your knowledge. I know that sounds backward. We have the whole internet in our pockets, and we can watch the news unfold in real time. But most of what we're consuming is about things we can't control or influence. That turns knowledge into a burden. Cut back on the things you have no say in, and focus on what's local and within your reach. Cut your social media scroll. Comparison breeds "what if" thinking and discontentment. And the algorithms are tracking every half-second pause in your scroll, then feeding you more of exactly what stirs up your uncertainty. Build a budget and stick to it. A budget lets you plan for what you need and prepare for the unexpected. It slows the kind of spending that feeds on uncertainty. Cut back on caffeine and other stimulants. They stack extra stress hormones on top of what your body is already producing, keeping you stuck in an activated, wound-up state. Write down reminders of God's faithfulness — put them where you'll see them. When Moses handed leadership over to Joshua, right before Joshua had to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land, Moses gave him this: "It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed." — Deuteronomy 31:8 (ESV) Joshua was afraid. Moses didn't hand him a plan — he reminded him who was going ahead of him. We can hold onto that same reminder. Ask if there's a deeper root to your uncertainty. Is there a past event, or a pattern, feeding what you feel now? That can be a loaded question, and it's often easier to sort through with a counselor or therapist who can help you connect what happened then to what you're carrying now. Uncertainty isn't going away. But we don't have to just absorb it. We can be strategic about how we handle it, and about lightening the stress load it puts on our bodies.