How Emotions Affect Our Health

Tap to Read ➤ Buzzle Staff

'Emotional health' is a commonly-used and rather understated term. Emotions have a powerful impact on a person's well-being. Understanding how emotions affect the heart and overall health will help channelize them in a more effective way for positive results.

Interesting Facts on Human Emotions

✯ In the 17th century, French philosopher René Descartes believed that, when a person experiences emotions - happy, sad, angry, etc., the body's inner valves open up to release fluids like bile, phlegm, etc. ✯ A human can make over 10,000 facial expressions to express a wide variety of subtle emotions.

Reasons that Lead to Positive Emotions

~ Moving to a new house ~ Getting married ~ Getting a new job ~ Getting a promotion ~ Having a baby ~ Having a child/sibling return home

Happy events lead to a flood of positive emotions - happiness, excitement, pleasure, satisfaction, etc. Emotion is associated with the heart because it leads to irregularity in blood flow, heartbeats, etc. However, when this happens due to controlled positive emotions, the heart remains healthy. These emotions have a positive effect on the entire body.

Happiness

Positive emotions can affect the heart, and make it healthy and strong. Being happy and blissful contributes to contentment, satisfaction, and warmth. It makes us want to smile and laugh.

Joy, happiness, and laughter facilitate easy blood flow to the heart and lowers blood pressure. Sharing happiness, smiling, laughing, being grateful, etc., increases happiness manifold, which is good for the heart and small intestine.

Care and Affection

Sympathy, affection, kindness, care, and empathy are positive emotions that affect heart rate, i.e., they help normalize the heart function.

Spending time with loved ones lowers blood pressure. Compassion, gratitude, and generosity affect the health of the liver, gallbladder, and the eyes. A spate of these emotions keeps these organs running in perfect order.

Love and Trust

Love is the fundamental emotion that no human can live without. At any time, age, or situation, people love to fall in love. Platonic crushes, adolescent excitement, mature love, or deeper commitments - each one makes a difference to one's health.

It's comforting to know that, there's always someone for you, someone to care for, to trust, and be trusted. Love, trust, honesty, support, and fairness are said to strengthen the functions of the spleen, heart, stomach, and pancreas.

Physical Intimacy

Physical intimacy - the expression of love and passion plays a very important role in our health. Hugs are great stress relievers - hugging people releases dopamine and oxytocin, and relieves stress.

Holding hands is said to soothe the nerves and lower blood cholesterol. Meeting someone you are crazy about can literally set your blood racing, increase heartbeats, and raised palpitations. Love in all its forms lowers the risk of a heart attack.

Courage

Righteousness, calmness, truth, integrity, silence, gentleness, courage, etc., are emotions that sum up how ideal and ethical a person is.

Depicting these emotions is said to strengthen the kidneys, bladder, lungs, ears, large intestine, and the skin. One can make out the difference. Staying calm and courageous increases the flow of positive energy through the body, and boosts the immune system.

Reasons That Lead to Negative Emotions

~ Suffering an illness/injury ~ Dealing with someone's death ~ Marital problems/divorce ~ Being unemployed ~ Experiencing money problems ~ Having a child leave home

Sad events lead to a torrent of negative emotions - tears, anger, grief, fury, etc. At such times, the brain sends signals to the heart and other organs that something is wrong. An organ-energy connection depicted here - negative emotions impair organs and reduce positive energy flow.

Worry

Worry, tension, mistrust, and anxiety may severely affect the stomach, spleen, and pancreas. It is manifested by digestive problems - loss of appetite, inability to excrete, vomiting, etc. Worrying or being upset unnecessarily can take a severe toll on the digestive system.

Anger

Anger has been the root cause of negativity since forever. Irritation, annoyance, anger, frustration, envy, fury, etc., are emotions that'll harm the liver, gallbladder and eyes. It is manifested by reduced bile production, excess cholesterol, and reduced detoxification.

Fear

Fear is an emotion that can practically finish off one's self-confidence, happiness, and belief.

Fear, anxiety, terror, panic, dismay, cowardice, distress, etc., leads to cold feet, trepidation, and phobias, and affects the kidneys, bladder, and ear functioning. It is manifested by nervous disorders, disinterest in sexual life, abdominal pain, etc.

Grief

Experiencing sadness, grief, and depression, especially after a trauma or the death of a loved one, can put immense load on the body.

To deal with the fact that a loved one has gone, is traumatic and painful, and it affects the mental health of the person too. These emotions affect the lungs, heart, large intestine, and the skin. It is manifested by breathlessness, lung disorders, constipation, etc.

Stress

Stress is the biggest contributor of bad health. It is also associated with emotions like impatience, dislike, hate, cruelty, etc.

Stress primarily affects the heart and the brain. The heart's electrical stability is affected, and so is the immune system. It is manifested by increased heartbeats, palpitations, chest pain, high blood pressure, etc.

Impact of Poor Emotional Health on the Body

Your body reacts to the way your mind senses work; it reacts to how you see, smell, feel, think, and act. This is called 'the mind-body connection'. Whenever you undergo an emotional change, your body exhibits physical changes. People who have balanced minds and a fairly good emotional health are aware of their thoughts and feelings.

When certain events disrupt their lives, positive or negative, their bodies react in a different manner. Excess of anything is bad, so there should always be a balance between the good and bad changes. It is up to the person to decide how much he/she lets the event affect him/her.

When one suffers from poor emotional health, the body depicts most of the following signs: ~ Headache ~ Body ache ~ Backache ~ Loss/gain in appetite ~ Weight loss/gain ~ Chest pain ~ Upset stomach

~ Constipation ~ Fatigue ~ Heavy head/light head ~ High blood pressure ~ Insomnia ~ Palpitations ~ Disinterest in physical intimacy ~ Breathlessness ~ Sweating