Emotions and health |
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The answer to the question - why is this so? - gives medical science, in which the doctrine of emotional stress. In a narrow sense, the term "stress" means "stress". In medicine, this is understood as the general set of protective and adaptive reactions of the body to any impact that generates physical or mental trauma, any danger. Emotions almost instantly and very effectively mobilize the body to face danger. At the same time, those organs that, in this situation, best ensure interaction with the environment, are quickly involved in enhanced activity. The activity of the sympathetic nervous system is sharply excited due to the almost instantaneous release of adrenaline, norepinephrine and other highly active hormones into the bloodstream. The latter significantly increase blood pressure, cause a rapid heartbeat - dramatically increase its work. The activity of skeletal muscles is stimulated. To ensure increased oxygen consumption, the bronchi expand, gas exchange increases, and energy processes in the body are enhanced. In case of possible injury, blood clotting factors are mobilized in advance, leading to stopping bleeding. Under the pressure of stress, a person, even the weakest, can show amazing examples of courage and strength.
The finest physiological mechanisms of this connection have now become known to science. It turned out that with strong emotions, the blood content of special hormonal substances - catecholamines and steroids, which have a pronounced effect on the heart and blood vessels - sharply increases. Under their influence, the heartbeat also quickens, blood pressure rises, vasospasm may occur. In addition, these hormones affect the functioning of the lungs, kidneys, stomach, intestines, even sweat glands. Now it becomes clear why with strong fear, joy, anger, the heart “pounds” so fast, the skin turns pale and red, and sweats.
It is more difficult to isolate and evaluate the effect of those small daily stresses and worries with which our life is associated. If negative emotions (even not very strong ones) act on a person for a long time, compensatory mechanisms begin to fail. This can cause neuroses, hypertension, angina pectoris, myocardial infarction. There are, as it were, disproportions between the magnitude and degree of negative emotions and the biological way of "discharging" the changes occurring in the body.
The solution is to learn how to manage your emotions. Strong, balanced people react much more calmly to any "blows of fate." Almost everyone can become balanced, strengthening the nervous system, protecting it from exhausting influences. The methods of training the nervous system are as old as the world — these are systematic physical education, full-fledged sleep, restoring balance even after a long and severe overwork, this is the desire to protect oneself and others from the "clicks" of pride.
Therefore, it is so important to teach children from an early age to normal relationships with others, to the rules and norms of a socialist community, to instill in them an aversion to rudeness, squabbles, and other violations of the norms of human behavior.
There are also purposeful ways to control yourself and your feelings. Speaking about this, we mean the so-called autogenous training, which, if necessary, allows the patient to relieve painful emotional sensations himself, to create a state of comfort and satisfaction. The most accessible and, perhaps, the universal way to prevent and weaken the actions of negative emotions is intensive muscular activity, systematic physical training. Give your body a load - and you will probably find it easier to manage yourself. N. Lazarev |
This, of course, is not accidental: all human experiences in our consciousness are associated with the heart. The heart is different: both kind and gentle, loving and sensitive. It is fiery, indomitable, easy-going. The heart can “bleed” from grief, “skip” from an unexpected meeting, “freeze” from happiness or love, “jump” from joy. And when we get angry, we can utter a bunch of unpleasant words "in our hearts" or commit rash acts.
The evolutionary connection of human emotions with the heart was very simply and ingeniously explained by Academician I. Pavlov. Can you imagine, he asked, any animal, say, a lion or a tiger, that would get angry while remaining completely motionless? Of course not. The lion immediately rushes into a fight with the enemy, fear drives the hare away. And in people you can observe the manifestation of a kind of muscular expression of feelings. A temperamental person shakes his fist in anger, walks up and down the room in excitement, dials a number on a telephone disk in his hearts. But in modern people, emotions do not necessarily turn into movements. Ethical prescriptions provide for the need to restrain emotions, or at least their outward manifestations. However, even now, all the activity to which stressful excitement leads is provided by the heart. It seems to "pass" through itself the reactions associated with emotions. And although muscles do not always take part in manifestations of feelings, the neural connection between emotions and the heart has been preserved.
I must say that strong negative emotions can have a very bad effect on the heart and blood vessels, especially in sick people with a weakened nervous system. There are known cases of fainting and even myocardial infarction. Fortunately, such disasters are rare.In healthy people, the reaction to ordinary emotions, as a rule, does not go beyond the normal range, and they generally cope with their experiences satisfactorily.
In other words, the biological basis of emotions has remained the same, and the form of overcoming them has completely changed and does not correspond to its biological content. In stressful situations, a person, like his distant progenitor, should immediately clothe his response to stress in the form of violent muscle activity. But a cultured person suppresses impulses in himself, controls and directs not only his movements, but also his speech, even his appearance, sometimes to his own detriment.
The word is sometimes the strongest emotional factor. An inappropriate remark about the supposedly poor health condition in a person with an easily injured nervous system can lead to despondency and fear. In exactly the same way, although a fair, but incorrect, rude remark from a boss to a subordinate can act. And, conversely, a kind word, a friendly, sympathetic attitude, encouraging remarks can have a beneficial effect on the psyche of not only a healthy person, but also a sick person.
Today we have learned not only to "tame" negative emotions, but also to manage them. We already know that the physiological basis of experience is the excessive production of special hormones by the adrenal glands - catecholamines. But there is no poison without an antidote. Medicines have been created that actively interfere with the synthesis of catecholamines or make nerve endings in the heart and blood vessels insensitive to their effects. In the near future, it will probably be possible to create drugs that help not only eliminate, but also prevent the damaging effect of painful experiences. These medicines will prove to be very useful for artists, testers, astronauts, that is, for those whose profession is associated with large and often repeated unrest, as well as for people who are especially sensitive, touchy. However, already now the doctor has at his disposal a series of remedies that remove the feeling of fear, anxiety, painful expectation, timidity, and self-doubt.
| Helping the heart | Appreciate sleep |
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