This reporter is Bai Guangdi, the king

"People's Daily" 14-0-0-0 page Screenshot of layout

Original question: Negative emotions can increase the risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular, digestive system diseases and tumors

To manage your emotions is to manage your body (people's livelihood)

Emotions are human psychological reactions to internal and external events or situations, which have complex and diverse manifestations, and are divided into positive emotions and negative emotions according to different experiences. Positive emotions refer to those emotions that bring about positive experiences and feelings, usually associated with states of contentment, pleasure, happiness, etc.; Negative emotions refer to those emotions that lead to unpleasant or painful experiences, often associated with states such as stress, frustration, unhappiness, etc.

In the fast-paced, stressful modern world, we tend to ignore the quiet changes in our emotions. As everyone knows, those emotions of anxiety, anger, and irritability often have a negative impact on our body, and imperceptibly cause a lot of damage to physical and mental health.

How do emotions affect physical health? Are negative emotions harmful to the body rather than beneficial? What are the benefits of positive emotions to the body? How to deal with negative emotions reasonably and effectively? With these questions, the reporter conducted an interview.

——Editor

Positive emotions can bring many benefits to the body

"Positive emotions are the 'protectors' of cardiovascular disease and can improve vascular endothelial function by reducing sympathetic excitability and reducing catecholamine release." Shi Jiabo, deputy director of the Department of Mood Disorders at Nanjing Brain Hospital in Jiangsu Province (Jiangsu Depression Diagnosis and Treatment Center), said that studies have shown that individuals with high levels of optimism have a 35% lower incidence of coronary heart disease and lower levels of coronary artery calcification, and that the association remains significant even after further adjustment for potential confounders such as health behaviors, health conditions and depression diagnoses. The association between optimism and cardiovascular health is stronger in women than in men.

Positive emotions can boost the body's immunity. According to Shi Jiabo, positive emotions can reduce the level of inflammatory factors by activating the parasympathetic nervous system, while increasing the secretion of immunoglobulin A (IgA) and enhancing the defense ability of the mucosal barrier.

A study of 50 healthy adults found that participants who consistently recorded positive emotional experiences had a 0% lower risk of catching a cold after exposure to rhinovirus.

The results showed a significant association between positive emotional experiences and cold resistance, which persisted after adjusting for multiple variables such as age, gender, education, ethnicity, body mass index, and season. In addition, the study also found that participants who experienced positive emotions not only had a reduced risk of catching a cold, but also had fewer and milder symptoms after a cold.

In addition, positive emotions can also promote the release of endogenous opioid peptides (such as endorphins), inhibit pain signaling in the posterior horn of the spinal cord, and are natural analgesics for pain management. There are also studies that show that positive emotions are potential drivers of longevity. A study of 29 older adults found that those with high life satisfaction had a 0% lower risk of all-cause mortality.

Long-term, chronic negative emotions can be detrimental to health

Not long ago, Jiang Linkai, the attending physician of the pain department of Dongying People's Hospital in Shandong Province, received a young patient who had been suffering from headaches for a long time. He learned that the patient was in a state of high-intensity work for a long time, sleep deprivation became the norm, emotional instability, irritability, and irritability. After a detailed consultation, Jiang Linkai judged that her pain symptoms were inseparable from the long-term backlog of negative emotions.

"Emotions are not only the external high-level manifestations of human mental and psychological state, but also an important 'regulator' of physical health, and conversely, physical health will also affect people's emotions, and the two 'go both ways' and affect each other." Shi Jiabo introduced.

Shi Jiabo said that modern medical research has confirmed that there is a two-way interaction between emotions and multiple physiological systems of the human body: positive emotions can enhance immunity and promote tissue repair, while long-term and chronic negative emotions will significantly increase the risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular, digestive system diseases and tumors through neuroendocrine, immune inflammation and genetics.

Many people will think that as long as it is a negative emotion, it will inevitably cause harm to the body. "Not all negative emotions can damage physical health, short-term anxiety can activate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA axis), resulting in an increase in cortisol, which improves the function of various organs in the body in a short period of time and helps people overcome difficulties." However, long-term and chronic negative emotions can damage the health of the body, Shi Jiabo said.

Long-term anxiety is one of the important triggers of functional gastrointestinal diseases. For example, anxiety is strongly associated with irritable bowel syndrome. Studies have shown that anxiety can cause intestinal tension and interfere with normal intestinal motility and digestive juice secretion, leading to irritable bowel syndrome.

At the same time, long-term anxiety can increase the excitability of the sympathetic nervous system and inhibit the parasympathetic nervous system, when the parasympathetic nerve is inhibited, the secretion function of the digestive tract glands is weakened, resulting in a decrease in the secretion of saliva, gastric acid and pepsin, insufficient gastric juice secretion, and weakened digestive function of the stomach. Patients may experience symptoms such as indigestion, bloating, and stomach pain, which not only affect the patient's nutritional intake, but may also lead to problems such as weight loss, weakened immunity, etc.

Being in negative emotions for a long time increases the incidence of cardiovascular disease. "Anxiety can cause the sympathetic nervous system to overboot, increasing heart rate and blood pressure, which can increase the burden on the heart." Anxiety can also affect platelet activity, promote thrombosis, and further increase the risk of cardiovascular events, Shi said. People with anxiety disorders may have more difficulty following a healthy lifestyle and treatment regimen, such as taking regular medications, quitting smoking, and eating a healthy diet, which can also indirectly affect cardiovascular health.

Negative emotions can have an impact on the nervous system and exacerbate memory decline.

Negative emotions caused by chronic stress lead to a persistent increase in cortisol, which inhibits synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus, leads to neuronal death, and makes the hippocampus mistakenly believe that individuals do not need as many memory pathways, resulting in large-scale pruning of synapses. "Negative emotions can induce depression, which may cause dysfunction of multiple organ systems throughout the body, which is considered to be a high-risk factor for the development of tumors. ”

"Negative emotions can affect the body's immunity and metabolism, cause immune disorders, suppress the normal function of the immune system, and then increase the risk of disease." Jiang Linkai said that gastrointestinal function is also very sensitive to the perception of emotional changes, and due to the influence of negative emotions, gastric motility and digestive juice secretion will be disordered, "This is the reason why many people often say 'angry stomachache'." ”

Neutral and effective treatment of negative emotions

At present, there are still many misunderstandings about the relationship between emotions and health. Many people think that it is good for health to let out all the emotions, but this practice of infinitely amplifying emotions can easily lead people into the trap of catastrophic thinking and emotional vortex, and should be avoided.

Some people also think that taking a step back and enduring negative emotions will pass, but the behavior of suppressing negative emotions in our hearts and not relieving them will not only affect our perceptual system, but also bring physical discomfort, which in turn will lead to diseases.

The secret of good health is hidden in people's words and deeds, joy and anger. How to overcome the emotional storm and protect physical and mental health in a scientific way, Jiang Linkai suggested that everyone should learn to regulate their emotions, reasonably and effectively eliminate negative emotions, and strive to become the master of emotions.

It is very important to vent emotions reasonably, whether it is sweating during exercise and fitness, or confiding in friends and family, so that the negative emotions accumulated in the heart can be effectively released and relieved.

"You can also put yourself in a beautiful scenery, quiet and leisurely environment, with a deep and slow breathing rhythm, so that the tense nerves are gradually relaxed, and the restless emotions are calmed down." Jiang Linkai introduced that when negative emotions hit, we can actively go outdoors and relieve emotions by embracing nature.

In addition, the use of positive autosuggestion and self-soothing is also a "good medicine" to combat negative emotions. "Build confidence in life to face difficulties and setbacks, encourage yourself more, cheer yourself on, 'I can!'' I'm already great!'" Jiang Linkai said.

When the negative emotions are too strong, Jiang Linkai suggested that the attention transfer method should be used to shift the attention to one's own interests and hobbies, so that the mind can find a temporary resting place, "We should cultivate more hobbies in our lives, which will become a harbor for us to resist negative emotions." For the situation that negative emotions cannot be resolved for a long time, affecting our normal work and life, and even causing physical discomfort, Jiang Linkai said that we should seek medical treatment in a professional medical institution in time and intervene through medication and psychotherapy.

"We can reshape the brain's neural network through positive thinking, regular aerobic exercise, more social interactions, and confiding in family or friends can all be effective in regulating emotions." Shi Jiabo said that emotion management is an important part of health management, and it is also a disease prevention strategy based on neurobiological mechanisms.