Emotional stress and heart disease
from about.com
There is a fair amount of circumstantial evidence that chronic emotional stress can be associated with heart disease and early death.
Several studies have documented that people without spouses die earlier than married people. (While some might claim this constitutes evidence that emotional stress is actually good for you, most authorities agree that having a spouse actually provides a significant degree of emotional support and stability.) Other studies have shown fairly conclusively that people who have had recent major life changes (loss of a spouse or other close relative, loss of a job, moving to a new location) have a higher incidence of death. People who are quick to anger or who display frequent hostility have an increased risk of heart disease.
So emotional stress is bad, right? It didn’t start out bad. Evolutionarily speaking, emotional stress is a protective mechanism. When our ancestors walked over a rise and suddenly saw a saber-tooth tiger 40 yards away, a surge of adrenaline prepared them for either fight or flight as they considered their options.
But in modern times, now that saber-tooth tigers are few and far between, most often neither fight nor flight is the appropriate reaction to a stressful situation. (Neither fleeing from nor punching your annoying boss, for instance, is generally considered proper.) So today, the adrenaline surge that accompanies a stressful situation is not channeled to its rightful conclusion. Instead of being released in a burst of physical exertion, it is internalized into a clenched-teeth smile and a “Sure, Mr. Smithers, I’ll be happy to fly to Toledo tomorrow and see about the Henderson account.”
It appears that the unrequited fight-or-flight reaction, if it occurs often enough and chronically enough, may be harmful.
