Emotions are an important part of human life. People are subject to both positive and negative emotions. Which of them predominate to a greater extent depends on the lifestyle of a person, his environment and attitude to life.

Many of us have heard that negative emotions can undermine health, positive emotions can “cure” ailments. If we talk about the mental state of a person, then emotions leave a certain imprint. But how they affect health, not many people know.

People say: "All diseases are from nerves." Yes, and doctors often use this phrase, trying to explain the cause of another illness. Numerous studies show that individual emotions affect human health in different ways. But before you figure out how this happens, you need to figure out which emotions are positive and which are negative.

Positive and negative emotions

By definition, emotions cannot be positive or negative. Just depending on what we feel at a given time, our well-being and health may improve or worsen. However, the stereotyped classification of feelings is firmly entrenched in society: positive and negative.

positive emotions considered to be:
• laughter and joy;
• sympathy and interest;
• curiosity and inspiration;
• delight and admiration.

To negative emotions refer to completely opposite feelings:
• sadness and sadness;
• insecurity and shame;
• irritation and envy;
• anxiety and hatred;
• feelings of guilt and indifference;
• anger and excitement.

This is the main list of human emotions, which, if desired, can be supplemented and diversified. But one thing is clear: when we experience positive emotions, our mood rises, our well-being improves, there is an interest in life and a desire to act. When negative emotions take over us - we fall into despondency, apathy, become angry at the world around us, we cease to be interested in life itself and the people around us.

How do negative emotions affect human health?

Ancient healers claimed that every illness is associated with a certain experience. Aggression can disrupt the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract, provoke headaches, hypertension and dental problems. Jealousy causes digestive disorders, insomnia and headaches. Fear is associated with heart disease, respiratory disorders, hearing impairment, visual acuity and kidney disease. Anxiety causes circulatory problems and diseases of the central nervous system. Hatred contributes to the development of cancer, liver disease and stomach ulcers.

How do positive emotions affect human health?

Any positive emotion increases the efficiency of the nervous system, improves sleep, stabilizes the emotional state, promotes the production of joy hormones (endorphins) and has a positive effect on the hormonal background of the body. The more positive emotions a person feels, the less he is prone to stress and various diseases.

How to manage emotions?

The best way to get rid of negative emotions is to "release" them. Such emotions cannot be kept in oneself, but the surrounding people should not suffer from them. Physical activity helps to cope with neuroses. A favorite hobby or hobby helps to distract from resentment and worries. Art therapy (rewriting problems on paper) allows you to block negative emotions with positive ones. Medicinal therapy - sedative phytopreparations, which contain soothing herbs.

Health

What we think and feel directly affects how we live. Our health is linked to our lifestyle, genetics and disease susceptibility. But beyond that, there is a strong relationship between your emotional state and your health.

The ability to deal with emotions, especially negative ones, is an important part of our vitality. The emotions we keep inside can one day explode and become a real disaster. for ourselves. That's why it's important to release them.

Strong emotional health is quite rare these days. Negative emotions such as anxiety, stress, fear, anger, jealousy, hatred, doubt and irritability can significantly affect our health.

Layoffs, marital turmoil, financial hardship, and the death of loved ones can be detrimental to our mental health and affect our health.

Here's how emotions can destroy our health.

The impact of emotions on health

1. Anger: heart and liver

Anger is a strong emotion that arises in response to despair, pain, disappointment and threat. If you take action right away and express it properly, anger can be good for your health. But in most cases, anger destroys our health.

In particular, anger affects our logical abilities and increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases.

Anger leads to constriction of blood vessels, increased heart rate, blood pressure, and rapid breathing. If this happens frequently, it leads to wear and tear of the walls of the arteries.

A 2015 study found that the risk of a heart attack increases 8.5 times two hours after an outburst of intense anger.

Anger also raises levels of cytokines (molecules that cause inflammation), which increases the risk of developing arthritis, diabetes and cancer.

To better manage your anger, get regular physical activity, learn relaxation techniques, or see a therapist.

2. Anxiety: stomach and spleen

Chronic anxiety can lead to a range of health problems. It affects spleen and weakens the stomach. When we worry a lot, our body is attacked by chemicals that make us react with a sick or weak stomach.

Anxiety or fixation on something can lead to problems such as nausea, diarrhea, stomach problems and other chronic disorders.

Excessive anxiety is associated with chest pain, high blood pressure, weakened immune system, and premature aging.

Severe anxiety also harms our personal relationships, disrupts sleep, and can make us distracted and inattentive to our health.

3. Sadness or grief: lungs

Of the many emotions we experience in life, sadness is the longest lasting emotion.

Sadness or longing weakens the lungs, causing fatigue and difficulty in breathing.

It disrupts the natural flow of breathing by constricting the lungs and bronchi. When you are overwhelmed with grief or sadness, air can no longer flow easily in and out of your lungs, which can lead to asthma attacks and bronchial diseases.

Depression and melancholy also spoil the skin, cause constipation and low oxygen levels in the blood. People suffering from depression tend to gain or lose weight and are easily addicted to drugs and other harmful substances.

If you are sad, you don't need to hold back your tears, because that way you will be able to release those emotions.

4. Stress: heart and brain

Each person experiences and reacts to stress differently. A little stress is good for your health and can help you get through your daily tasks.

However, if the stress becomes too much, it can lead to high blood pressure, asthma, stomach ulcers and irritable bowel syndrome.

As you know, stress is one of the main culprits in the occurrence of heart disease. It raises blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and also serves as an impetus for bad habits such as smoking, physical inactivity and overeating. All these factors can damage the walls of blood vessels and lead to heart disease.

Stress can also lead to a number of diseases such as:

Asthmatic disorders

· Hair loss

Mouth ulcers and excessive dryness

Mental problems: insomnia, headaches, irritability

Cardiovascular disease and hypertension

Neck and shoulder pain, musculoskeletal pain, lower back pain, nervous tics

Skin rashes, psoriasis and eczema

· Disorders of the reproductive system: menstrual disorders, recurrence of genital infections in women and impotence and premature ejaculation in men.

Diseases of the digestive system: gastritis, gastric and duodenal ulcers, ulcerative colitis and irritable bowel

Connection between emotions and organs

5. Loneliness: heart

Loneliness is a condition that makes a person cry and fall into deep melancholy.

Loneliness is a serious health hazard. When we're lonely, our brains release more stress hormones like cortisol, which cause depression. This in turn affects blood pressure and sleep quality.

Studies have shown that loneliness increases the chances of developing mental illness, and is also a risk factor for coronary heart disease and stroke.

In addition, loneliness has a negative effect on the immune system. Lonely people are more likely to develop inflammation in response to stress, which can weaken the immune system.

6. Fear: adrenal glands and kidneys

Fear leads to anxiety, which wears us down. kidneys, adrenal glands and reproductive system.

The situation when fear arises leads to a decrease in the flow of energy in the body and makes it defend itself. This leads to a slowing of the respiratory rate and blood circulation, which causes a state of stagnation, due to which our limbs practically freeze with fear.

Most of all, fear affects the kidneys, and this leads to frequent urination and other kidney problems.

Fear also causes the adrenal glands to produce more stress hormones, which have a devastating effect on the body.

Strong fear can cause pain and disease of the adrenal glands, kidneys and lower back and urinary tract diseases. In children, this emotion can be expressed through urinary incontinence which is closely related to anxiety and self-doubt.

7. Shock: kidneys and heart

Shock is a manifestation of trauma caused by an unexpected situation that knocks you down.

A sudden shock can upset the balance in the body, causing overexcitation and fear.

A strong shock can undermine our health, especially the kidneys and heart. A traumatic reaction leads to the production of a large amount of adrenaline, which is deposited in the kidneys. This leads to heart palpitations, insomnia, stress and anxiety. The shock can even change the structure of the brain, affecting areas of emotion and survival.

The physical consequences of emotional trauma or shock are often low energy, pale skin, difficulty breathing, palpitations, sleep and digestive disturbances, sexual dysfunction, and chronic pain.

8. Irritability and hatred: liver and heart

Emotions of hate and irritability can affect gut and heart health, leading to chest pain, hypertension and heart palpitations.

Both of these emotions increase the risk of high blood pressure. Irritable people are also more prone to cellular aging than good-natured people.

Irritability is also bad for the liver. When verbally expressing hatred, a person exhales condensed molecules containing toxins that damage the liver and gallbladder.

9. Jealousy and envy: the brain, gallbladder and liver

Jealousy, despair and envy directly affect our brain, gallbladder and liver.

As you know, jealousy leads to slow thinking and impairs the ability to see clearly.

In addition, jealousy causes symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression, which leads to excessive production of adrenaline and norepinephrine in the blood.

Jealousy has a negative effect on the gallbladder and leads to stagnation of blood in the liver. This causes a weakened immune system, insomnia, increased blood pressure, palpitations, high cholesterol and poor digestion.

10. Anxiety: stomach, spleen, pancreas

Anxiety is a normal part of life. Anxiety can increase breathing and heart rate, increase concentration and blood flow to the brain, which can be beneficial to health.

However, when anxiety becomes a part of life, it has a devastating effects on physical and mental health.

Gastrointestinal diseases are often closely associated with anxiety. It affects the stomach, spleen, and pancreas, which can lead to problems such as indigestion, constipation, ulcerative colitis.

Anxiety disorders are often a risk factor for a range of chronic diseases, such as coronary heart disease.

Emotions are an integral part of the reaction of man and other higher animals to environmental factors. They appear constantly and affect the behavior and actions of any thinking being all his life, so it is obvious that not only the spiritual state of a person, but also his physical health depends on the emotional background to a certain extent.
The word “emotion” itself comes from the Latin “emoveo”, which means excitement, shock, experience. That is, it is logical to perceive the emotions that arise in us as fluctuations passing through the whole body, affecting all organs and systems, linking them together.

Since ancient times, scientists interested in medicine have observed a correlation between the prevailing emotional state and human health. This is written in the treatises of oriental medicine, the works of Hippocrates and other ancient Greek scientists. We can also trace the understanding of the relationship between emotional and physical health among the people thanks to well-known sayings: “joy makes you young, but grief makes you old”, “like rust eats iron, sadness corrodes the heart”, “you can’t buy health - it gives the mind”, “all diseases from nerves." These statements call for attention to the detrimental effect of severe emotional stress on the nervous system, which negatively affects the health of other organs and systems.

In modern science, the connection between physical health and emotions was confirmed by neurophysiologist Charles Sherington, Nobel Prize winner. He deduced a pattern: the resulting emotional experiences flow into somatic and vegetative changes.

- Physiology of the influence of emotions on the body.

The reaction to the world around us, first of all, occurs in the central nervous system. Receptors from the sense organs send signals to the brain, and it responds to emerging stimuli, forming a set of commands to help overcome the obstacle that arises or consolidate the correct action.

- Scheme of the impact of negative emotions.

With negative emotions, for example, in response to resentment, aggression occurs, reinforced by the adrenal hormone norepinephrine; when you feel danger, fear arises, reinforced by adrenaline; the appearance of a rival or competitor for resources becomes a cause of jealousy and envy. Regular irritation appropriately transforms ordinary, controlled emotions into something more: in the first case, aggression develops into hatred, in the second, fear into anxiety (the state of the victim), in the third, into irritability and discontent.

- Scheme of action of positive emotions.

Positive emotions are accompanied by the release of happiness hormones (endorphins, dopamine), they give a euphoric effect that makes a person try harder to get joy and peace again. Similarly, serotonin works, the level of which in the blood determines sensitivity to pain and physical factors (it is thanks to it that children so easily forget about injuries and are able to ignore obvious injuries such as cuts, tears, etc. for a long time).

- Physiological manifestations of emotions.

Hormones prepare the body to respond to irritation: the heart rate accelerates, blood vessels dilate, characteristic facial expressions occur, abdominal muscles contract, breathing quickens, the evacuation function of the gastrointestinal tract is stimulated, “goosebumps” appear (adaptation to air temperature), fever, nervous excitement.

When the boundary of regular influence is overcome, this means that the person did not cope with the problem on his own, which constantly caused the corresponding emotions. Upon reaching a certain limit, individual for each, the body itself takes the levers to control the body. Thus, with the new appearance of the stimulus, the conscious part of the personality loses control. In this case, a person begins to behave like an animal, is able to harm himself or others, that is, emotions can not only harm the physical body, but also seriously undermine spiritual health.

In the case of constant emotional influence, be it positive or negative, the body self-destructs, as a person ceases to pay attention to his primary needs. A constant strong reaction (excitement, concern, fear, euphoria) exhausts the body, which becomes the cause of the disease.

Each of us knows that emotions that arise as a result of any events are an aid to the formation of mood. And the mood, in turn, depends on the ability to cope with certain problems. Cheerfulness of spirit is always accompanied by success and joy, and depression and fatigue are always accompanied by illnesses and misfortunes.

Oriental medicine has an extensive knowledge base to find the relationship between individual internal organs and external manifestations of their condition. For example, it was Eastern doctors who created maps of bioactive points, a urinalysis system, schemes of values ​​for the type and color of plaque on the tongue, and it was determined by what changes in facial features one or another disease can be detected.

How negative emotions affect health:

Anxiety, anxiety, depression - these emotions extinguish the manifestations of energy in a person, make them fear the world around them. The consequence of constant restraint is problems with the tonsils (tonsillitis) and throat (bronchitis, laryngitis), up to loss of voice;

Jealousy - unrest caused by the desire to limit the freedom of a nearby person and greed, provoke insomnia and frequent migraines;

Hatred - sudden surges of energy that overwhelm the body, splash out to no avail, shaking the human psyche. He often and greatly suffers from the slightest setbacks, and improper impulsive behavior leads to problems with the gallbladder, stomach and liver.

Irritation - when every little thing irritates a person, we can talk about sensitization of the body caused by a weakening of protective functions. It is not surprising that such people suffer from frequent bouts of nausea (a physiological reaction to poisoning), which no medication can cope with;

Arrogance and snobbery - arrogance provokes constant dissatisfaction with the things and people around a person, which causes problems with the joints, intestines and pancreas;

Fear - appears in people for whom the main goal is survival. Fear absorbs energy, makes a person cynical, withdrawn, dry and cold. Suspicion and confidence in the hostility of the world provoke arthritis, deafness and senile dementia in such a person;

Self-doubt - guilt for every oversight and mistake overloads thoughts and causes chronic headaches;

Despondency, boredom, sadness - such emotions stop the flow of energy in the body, provoke stagnation, loss of motivation. In an effort to protect himself from risks and new attachments, a person goes into his own sadness and loses the opportunity to get bright positive emotions. As a result, he is overtaken by constipation, asthma, immunodeficiency, impotence, frigidity.

Excessive joy is also referred to negative manifestations of emotions, because because of it, a person’s energy dissipates without a trace, getting lost and wasted in vain. Due to constant loss, a person is forced to look for new pleasures, which he is again unable to keep. The cycle closes, and life turns into a constant search for entertainment, which leads to anxiety (fear of losing access to what you want), despair and insomnia.

Of course, it should be borne in mind that one-time, rare manifestations of negative emotions are a completely normal reaction to the problems that every person has. To a certain extent, they even turn out to be useful, because, firstly, they are able to push a person to an important decision and stimulate the desire to correct the problem situation in the right direction, and secondly, they are a contrast against which positive emotions become more desirable and better felt. .

Problems bring long-term emotional impacts that become pathological over time. It is they that undermine the body from the inside and are able to make a person defenseless against the surrounding harmful factors, creating the basis for the development of all kinds of diseases.

Leather

Of course, our appearance is directly related to the nervous system. You can always determine exactly what you or your interlocutor are feeling just by looking at him: when a person is angry or embarrassed, redness appears, when he is afraid - pallor. But what happens inside the body when we experience positive or negative emotions?

Doctors say that during a period of stress, when we experience a lot of negative emotions, blood flow is directed primarily to those organs that the body considers most important for survival: the heart, lungs, brain, liver and kidneys. And from other organs there is an outflow of blood, for example, from the skin, which immediately feels a lack of oxygen, acquiring an unhealthy shade. That is why a prolonged feeling of stress can not only harm your beauty, but also disrupt the mechanism of the whole organism.

It turns out that by taking care of our nervous system, we help ourselves get rid of all the negative consequences that manifest themselves primarily on the skin. Have you noticed that now the market for cosmetic services is replete with offers of procedures that cheer up and positively affect the condition of the skin? They are designed specifically to give you a feeling of comfort, joy and tranquility.

Popular

Figure

Do you like to eat sweets when you notice that you are in a bad mood? Most likely, you motivate “stress-eating” by the fact that a piece of cake or a huge portion of ice cream will allow you to increase the level of serotonin in your blood, which has received a loud name - the “happiness hormone”. But let's be frank: when you are in a bad mood, your metabolism slows down, the hormone of joy does not bring the expected effect, and as a result, you get a double portion of disorders - excess weight and skin problems. If you want to cheer yourself up and at the same time tighten your figure, then it’s better to go to the pool or the gym. Moderate physical activity copes with a bad mood “perfectly”, allowing you to splash out negative energy, tone up and relax. And all this leads to a beautiful appearance, a healthy metabolism and a beautiful figure.

Health

Surely you have heard that, for example, pregnant women need peace and a good mood so that the baby does not worry with his mother. This is so important that even in ancient India and ancient China, three months after conception, they tried to surround a woman with only exquisite things, sewed clothes for her from the softest materials, and sometimes even arranged concerts where pleasant music was played. It was believed that this contributes to the birth of a healthy and talented baby.

All this is not just so, if the influence of emotions was known in antiquity. Positive emotions contribute to the formation of endorphins in the brain - hormones of happiness - affecting the human immune system. These hormones often help us win over diseases! Do you know that, on average, 90% of diseases are formed when a person experiences negative emotions, that is, psychologically preparing himself for the fight?

The list of diseases that can manifest themselves due to worries, stress, constant negative emotions is incredibly wide: here you have neurosis, depression, colds, and even oncological and autoimmune diseases! The nervous system is incredibly sensitive to external and internal influences, affecting the entire body. But if you tune in to a positive wave, you will immediately feel that it is much more pleasant for you to live: despondency cannot exist where there is a healthy emotional state.

Communication

Well, who wants to communicate with a person from whom you feel sheer dissatisfaction? It seems to no one. Therefore, do not let a bad mood affect your relationship with your loved one, friends or relatives. If you are positive in your outlook on the world, you will surely attract the same positive people, events and circumstances to you. Look around: everything that surrounds you is the result of your own thoughts and emotions! How you look at the world is the result of your thinking. Whether you are aware of it or not, the dominant thoughts will definitely affect your environment.

How to set yourself up for positive emotions?

Psychologists talk about some very simple but effective ways to get rid of negative energy and find well-deserved peace and satisfaction:

Learn to express your emotions out loud! Of course, your boyfriend doesn't need to know how much you're fed up with his best friend, and your boss doesn't need to know how much he's put on your shoulders. Better tell it to your girlfriend, who will never betray you, or say everything to yourself so that no one can hear you.

A good idea that all psychologists advise is to start your own personal diary, where you can write down all your experiences and even positive emotions! Let your diary not be a "black book" full of negativity for you. Write down the bright moments for which you are grateful. The feeling of gratitude improves your mood, and you yourself tune in to a positive wave.

Ready to put our tips into practice? Cosmo, together with HP, announces the launch of a new project in which famous heroes talk about the brightest moments of their lives - from the birth of a child to the first performance on stage in front of a huge audience. Follow the updates on the Cosmo website and participate in a joint competition.

Learn more about the competition and how to enter to win the HP DeskJet Ink Advantage 2520hc Multifunction Printer with high-capacity cartridges and a record low cost per page.

In the explanatory dictionary of the Russian language, the meaning of the word "abuse" according to S.I. Ozhegov - judgmental and offensive words, swearing, , which is an insult. And with every insult, the same chemicals are released into the blood of a person as when beaten. There is a stress response. And in medical terms, stress is a group of chemicals - catecholamines and steroids. The most famous of them are epinephrine and norepinephrine. In response to the stressful situation associated with the usual name-calling, our body produces an excess amount of steroids that affect all functional systems. Accordingly, stress echoes in every organ and system.

When insulting and physically punishing children, you can really, in the full sense of the word, “drive” into the child’s head what they say to him. However, this also applies to adults, although children's memory is more durable. Such a practice of communication works like a stigma, a person begins to correspond to the chosen image. Especially dangerous are the insults received from the closest and dearest people, significant adults - parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, teachers. There is a so-called programming of fate, of course, most often this is a parent program. And what harm does abuse and physical punishment do to human health, this is evidenced by the numerous works of scientists involved in the study of the nature of psychosomatic diseases - I.G. Malkina-Pykh, Louise Hay, Yu.Yu. Eliseev and others.

In response to such a gross intervention, certain negative emotions arise - resentment, anger, anger, hatred, guilt. There is criticism of oneself and others. Negative emotions experienced by a person begin to have a detrimental effect on all areas of life. If it seems that no matter how much you criticize and swear, everything is like water off a duck's back, even in this case there is a negative impact with all the ensuing consequences. Here is a vivid schematic example of the influence of experienced emotions on health, violations of which can occur due to the causes of resentment, inferiority, fears, reduced self-esteem, humiliation. All this can be avoided by adequately forming relationships, especially in the family, between children and parents, husbands and wives, elderly relatives and grandchildren.

The life stories of my clients who have developed a mass of psychosomatic diseases, ranging from banal acute respiratory infections to bronchial asthma (restraint of sobs) confirm these data. Alas, we very often hear such malicious expressions: - "Idiot, mediocrity, lazybones, nothing will come of you, loser." What a delusion people fall into, uttering such words that not only hurt the soul, but also play the most important role in a person’s life, determining his entire future fate and health in general!

And some women tend to “drench” their beloved men with such selective abuse and criticism that it cuts the ear. It is strongly not recommended to speak badly about your husband, especially behind his back. People unconsciously feel how they are treated, so is it any wonder if after talking with friends about her husband there is a scandal at home, and the husband leaves in an unknown direction? The man didn't hear anything, but he felt it. It is enough to analyze your behavior and you can see clear signs of the correspondence of events.

Many women tend to call their spouse by their last name. It sounds somehow strange, dismissive, without a hint of love in his voice. In my opinion, you don’t need to call your husband that, it’s not only ugly, but also deprives a person of the opportunity to hear his own native name, because that’s what is so pleasant for everyone. Since ancient times, the name of the husband was not used at all with strangers, it was a strict ban, a taboo. If they talked about their spouse, they called him by his first name and patronymic, but they did not discuss his affairs.

Call, criticize and scold

no one at all, even mentally,

including those who are unpleasant.

Known "The Parable of the Nails" She is very instructive.

My father had a son who constantly scolded and called names. Then, however, he repented, apologized, and everything was repeated all over again. The father listened, listened, and suggested that his son hammer a nail into the board every time he scolds someone. The son, of course, hammered a lot of nails. Then the father ordered to pull out all the nails. The son did it. And his father said to him: “Do you see how many ugly marks there are on the board? Also in the soul of those whom you offended, these scars and potholes remain forever, nothing can fix them.

I would like to give an example of a family I know, where complete harmony reigns. The recipe for their happiness is quite simple: children are never criticized or scolded, parents spend a lot of free time together with each other and with their children. Everyone is constantly expressing pleasure, thanking and praising family members, showing every kind of attention. Mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, everyone is always looking for a reason to express their admiration for an act, dress, cooked dinner, appearance, any small and big achievement.

Probably, you need to be more tolerant of each other, communicate with love and respect, try to see, notice and cultivate only positive traits in any person. And if you clearly do not see them and are sure that they are not there, then try to look with your soul. The fruits will not be long in coming! Many will be satisfied and happy, especially you!

Your psychologist

Tatiana Zaitseva