When it issues to risks for heart ...

When it issues to risks for heart disease, our emotional intelligence should be right up there with diet and exercise. a of the latest research has fix that avoiding emotional extremes and learning healthy ways to expres feelings can make a dramatic difference to cardiac health.

Specifically, novel studies show that learning to cope with sum of two units of the most potentially damaging emotions--depression and anger--reduces not merely the physical damage stress wreaks in succession the heart, but can also continue your life span. Furthermore, Ohio State researchers fix that depressed men are more likely to go through fatal heart attacks than are damped women. The 10-year study, published in last May's Archives of Internal Medicine, followed 876 women and 279 men who were diagnosed with clinical depression yet showed no signs of cardiac question s During that decade, 16 percent of these women died from heart disease, compared with 46 percent of the men Researchers speculate that the higher fatality rates for the men may be to be ascribed to the male tendency to detain feelings bottled up rather than expressing them.

The way populace regard their surroundings can also be a significant source of stres according to another Ohio State meditation published in the April issue of Life Sciences. In this cogitation 33 women and 31 men filled gone out questionnaires gauging how they perceived their relationship with others and by what means they handled anger. Men, researchers learned, viewed the world with a more hostile and adversarial attitude. "People with this personality trait descry the world as almost a dangerous place to live; they're more cynical and they be attentive to to question a great deal," says Catherine Stoney, PhD an Ohio State psychology professor. so characteristics can have serious results Samples showed that the line levels of heart-damaging homocysteine of men in the cogitation were 30 percent higher than the women's. Although scientists are still unsure with what intent people prone to negative' emotions have higher descendants levels, homocysteine has been proven to damage the protective layer of enclosed spaces inside artery walls. (See "The Heart of the Matter," below.)

The scolding from this research, Stoney says, is that the heart undergos less stress if we expres unpleasant emotions with discrimination rather than detonate in rage or bury feelings. clan who can control how and when they gain steamed aren't slaves to their calms she notes. "You have to be able to turn the thoughts at a situation and decide when it's appropriate to expres anger and when it's better to maintain it inside."

The ability to avoid an emotional roller coaster is also essential for heart health, says James Blumenthal, PhD a psychology professor at Duke University Medical Center family whose emotions frequently fluctuate--from calm to irritated to angry--are four times more at risk for ischemia, an ofttimes symptomless condition that reduces relations flow to the heart, according to a 1999 Duke reflection "We can't completely avoid negative emotions, however it is possible to have better ascendency over how we respond to them," Blumenthal explains. Emotional stability, he says, can be an acquired trait; exercise, biofeedback, stres management and relaxation techniques all help balance potentially dangerous highs and lows

We do have an instinctual stress-reduction mechanism. "One of the healthiest things you can do for the heart is cry" says Stephen T Sinatra, MD a cardiologist in Manchester, Conn and author of Heartbreak and Heart Disease (Keats Publishing, 1996) "When it issues to emotions," Sinatra says, "the best thing for the heart is to make progress with your intuition."

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