It may seem like the tears will wash away the pain, perhaps from a lover’s betrayal that led to a broken heart. However, your doctor comes bearing other news that entails the brokenness could be bad for your heart.
Unknown to many people, the anger, pain, or hostility people feel from a broken heart is more likely to cause heart disease. Moreover, depression too from heartbreak can also put you at risk of heart disease and diabetes, cancer and more complications.
Apart from the dangers of a wounded heart, experts reported that those who developed heart disease, in the end, tend to benefit from treatment.
According to research in the 1960s by California cardiologists Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman, it showed a connection between anger to heart problems. Subsequently, it invented the term “type A” to define nervous and impatient people as those who were more likely to have heart attacks.
Depression Congestion
Researchers in Norway revealed that patients suffering from congestive heart failure and severe depression were four times more likely to die during two years of treatment than those who were not depressed. This means that anger is not the only source of unhappiness that can harm the heart.
However, knowing that sadness and anger are harmful to your heart will not do so much to help you recover from the broken heart. That’s why successful heart disease treatment comes to the as good news.
Experts at the Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans found that 13% of 500 heart-attack victims from their research had extreme levels of unexpressed anger and hostility. Afterwards, they put the patients in a 12-week cardiac rehabilitation program that involved exercise training, nutrition counselling and infrequent psychosocial counseling.
After 12 weeks, the hostile patients displayed better improvement. They improved in body-fat reduction, exercise capacity and good cholesterol levels than the “low-hostility” patients. Furthermore, they reported reduced anxiety, hostility and depression, and even fewer complaints of overall physical discomfort.
What to Do
Regular exercise of your choice will not just strengthen your body but also reduce the rate of stress.
Building strong relationships with close family and friends is crucial for both mental and physical health.
Find a way to minimize stress. Some people will seek a psychotherapist’s help as it will help them vent their hostility, which can lead to heart problems, while others will find relief in exercises like yoga.
These practices and other more that experts will recommend are likely to benefit more than your heart. The experts from the University of California at Los Angeles said that people who uphold a positive attitude when confronted with stressful situations have resilient immune systems compared to their pessimistic peers.
A broken heart is inevitable in life, so it would be best to understand how profound the effect can be emotionally, mentally, and even physically. However you respond to a broken heart, you should seek help to combat adverse effects that could be fatal. Yes, people die from broken heart.
