How Do Your Emotions Affect Your Physical Health?

People have long suspected or known that the health of the body is intimately connected to that of the mind. Sayings like "died of a broken heart" or "pined away from grief" are expressive of this relationship in its extreme form.

Modern research validates this ancient intuitive knowledge, showing that healthy emotions must be experienced and expressed in a correspondingly healthy manner to enhance mental and physical wellbeing. Unhealthy emotions, or healthy emotions that are not allowed any expression, may leach away the energy of living and increase the propensity to unhealthy coping mechanisms, chronic disease, or autoimmune manifestations. Emotions have long been classified as positive or negative, but a better way to think of them might be to evaluate how they affect one's general outlook on life under a given set of circumstances. For instance, in some situations, anger or fear is a positive response, while in others, they are uncalled-for and therefore negative.

As psychologist Dr. Barbara L. Fredrickson of the University of North Carolina says, "All emotions—whether positive or negative—are adaptive in the right circumstances." News-Medical

How Do Your Emotions Affect Your Physical Health?

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Dr. Lii Thomas, MD

By Dr. Lii Thomas, MD

Reviewed by Danielle Ellis, B.Sc.

Negative emotions and physical ill-health

Positive emotions and health

Emotions and eating

The Amygdala bridge

Understanding the link

Emotional regulation

References 

People have long suspected or known that the health of the body is intimately connected to that of the mind. Sayings like "died of a broken heart" or "pined away from grief" are expressive of this relationship in its extreme form.

Modern research validates this ancient intuitive knowledge, showing that healthy emotions must be experienced and expressed in a correspondingly healthy manner to enhance mental and physical wellbeing. Unhealthy emotions, or healthy emotions that are not allowed any expression, may leach away the energy of living and increase the propensity to unhealthy coping mechanisms, chronic disease, or autoimmune manifestations.

Image Credit: Vector Mine/Shutterstock.com

Image Credit: Vector Mine/Shutterstock.com

Emotions have long been classified as positive or negative, but a better way to think of them might be to evaluate how they affect one's general outlook on life under a given set of circumstances. For instance, in some situations, anger or fear is a positive response, while in others, they are uncalled-for and therefore negative.

As psychologist Dr. Barbara L. Fredrickson of the University of North Carolina says, "All emotions—whether positive or negative—are adaptive in the right circumstances."

Negative emotions and physical ill-health

Problems with health may arise when negative emotions are due to undue dwelling in the past or constant anxiety rather than a response to the current scenario. Neuroticism, defined as the tendency to experience negative emotions and display aggressive, hostile, or angry behavioral patterns, is well-known to be a risk factor for a range of physical health outcomes like cardiovascular disease, asthma, and hypertension.

A depressive mood has been shown to be linked to major changes in cellular immunity in a dose-dependent manner. This includes lower lymphocyte response to antigens that would otherwise induce their proliferation, reduced natural killer (NK) cell activity, and fewer white cells in the blood.

Immune dysregulation as the result of psychological factors, such as unhealthy emotions, could be the underlying mechanism for aging, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes, arthritis, some cancers, and even frailty, via the production of inflammatory chemicals in the body in response to a negative affect. Again, both acute and chronic stress, hostility, and depression are suggested to be independent risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Conversely, a positive outlook on life has been associated with lower blood pressure, reduced cardiovascular risk, better weight control, healthy blood sugar levels, and increased longevity. Neuronal health and neural functioning, cardiovascular health, immune function, and endocrine physiology are all involved in stress responses. The relationship between this has, not yet, been determined, especially as it could be bidirectional. Some researchers propose that emotions induce eating by controlling the choice of foods or inhibiting food intake; emotions switch off higher brain control of eating; some individuals eat to reduce their emotional intensity. Comfort eating is often a mechanism to reduce negative emotions and control their intensity.

Eating too little or overeating are alike harmful to physical health. Yet the changes in eating could be the result of emotions hindering eating, a byproduct of certain emotions, or the result of emotional regulation. Some scientists have used brain imaging to map the stimuli that trigger reward pathways in the basal ganglia and the ventral striatum, deep in the brain. Some results show that positive emotions activate the latter for a longer duration, during which time the individual experiences feelings of wellbeing. If this is the basal state of this part of the brain, healthful changes occur in the body.

With negative emotional states, amygdala activation occurs. Interestingly, this part of the brain is involved in processing emotions and regulating stress responses, mediated by the important hypothalami pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis. It is, therefore, key to the experience of feeling fear and anxiety.