Is your own mind making you feel ill?

THE gut-wrenching nausea that hits when you receive bad news, the palpitations and sweaty palms you get when you’re nervous. We’ve probably all experienced these physical reactions to psychological triggers at some point.

But accepting that our minds can be the cause of more severe physical symptoms is a different matter.

As Irish consultant neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan demonstrates in her book, It’s All In Your Head, which has just scooped the Wellcome Book Prize 2016, psychosomatic illness — which basically means physical symptoms where there’s no obvious medical cause, and so it’s believed that psychological or emotional factors are to blame — goes far beyond stomach butterflies and aches and pains that get worse when you’re worried.