Miserable people have yet more reasons to be even more miserable.
There’s a greater chance of them dying from heart disease.
According to fascinating new research, having pessimistic thoughts increases your chance of having a heart attack.
The theory is that stress drives up blood sugar levels and blood pressure which in turn, causes damage to the heart. Over time, this can prove fatal.
The study which investigated more than 2 000 men and women over 11 years, found that the 121 people of that group who died of heart disease had a gloomier approach to life than the rest. This shows the intricate relationship between the mind and the body.
Unfortunately, doctors too often deal with patients’ physical and mental health separately. They fail to appreciate the vital link between the two. But it’s not only being pessimistic that can have a deleterious effect on the heart.
Stressful events, grief and depression can do the same.
I was made aware of this when I was aged eight, though the scenario did not involve humans but my pet chicken, Molly, who was sitting glumly in the middle of the garden and refusing to move. After remaining in that position for three whole days, she died.
The explanation that my parents gave me and my distraught sister was that Molly had died of a broken heart. And that was down to the death of our cat, George, just a few days earlier.
Rather bizarrely for a cat and a chicken, Molly and George had a good relationship. They would chase each other round the garden and Molly would sit with George when he ate his dinner.
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As the family story goes, after George died, Molly didn’t understand and tried to find him in all his favourite hiding spots.
When she realised he was no longer around, mournful Molly stood heartbroken in the middle of the lawn — and she remained there until she died.
Years later, working on medical wards, I often thought of this tale as I saw, time and time again, people who had heart attacks after difficult life events or after suffering from depression.
One patient, Mr Thomas, was very depressed and his doctors had asked me to talk to him. I introduced myself as the resident psychiatrist and immediately he broke down in tears.
His wife had died eight months before and he didn’t see the point in living any more. ‘It broke my heart when she died,’ he told me. ‘I think that’s why I’m here’ and there was a lot of truth in what he said.
Research has shown that in the first year after a spouse dies, their partner has a 67 per cent increase in the chance of a heart attack. Furthermore, there is a 40 per cent increase in the chance of death during this time.
It confirms the ‘dying from a broken heart’ theory.
T he effect of mental health on our general health is obviously more powerful than doctors previously thought. To my thinking, such stories and the recent findings that pessimists are more likely to suffer heart attacks contradicts the long-held Cartesian view of a distinct division between the mind and the body.
Under this theory which has been predominant in medical thinking, the mind and body should be viewed as independent, unrelated entities.
This means that problems are treated as either physical or psychological, and there is no interaction between the two.
Of course, this contradicts the experience of many people like my patient Mr Thomas, who was heartbroken after his wife’s death.
Sadly, medical practitioners are rarely interested in the psychological side of illness, and psychiatrists are often guilty of ignoring physical effects of problems of the mind.
I am a strong believer that we need to start seeing people holistically: that is, treating them not in parts, but as a whole.
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Of course, it may be in pessimists’ gloomy nature to disagree with this prognosis, but being plagued with negative thoughts can certainly have an adverse effect on peoples mental and physical health.
Daily Mail