As we age, we are more likely to eventually experience emotional upheaval, loss, and change. Many of us have gone from full-time busy workers or full-time parents to part-time workers, empty nesters and grandparents, to full-time retirees, with or without a partner, adequate financial resources, secure housing, or a network of close family and friends. . . We can move from a familiar neighborhood to a different retirement community. Friends, neighbors, close relatives, and even our beloved pets can get sick and die. Depending on whether we have developed positive mental attitudes, uplifting and life-affirming spiritual connections, a healthy lifestyle, social contacts, and an ongoing passion for life, which researchers describe as the formula for healthy aging, we are more likely to We suffer from more illness, disability and emotional instability as we age.
Complications of emotional disorders and stress
Stress accelerates cellular aging
Research is beginning to substantiate the devastating effects of long-term stress on health and aging. Telomeres, the DNA protein structures that cap the ends of chromosomes and promote genetic stability, appear to play an important role in cellular aging and disease. Elisa Epel and her colleagues examined the effects of psychological stress on telomere maintenance in 58 healthy premenopausal women. The results, which appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences dated December 1, 2004, indicate that psychologically stressed women had shorter telomeres and less telomerase, a telomere-producing enzyme that affects immune function cells in the blood.
Stressful jobs affect the health of the elderly.
In workers over the age of 60, problems at work increase blood pressure, although these older workers often report being less upset and less sad than younger employees when work problems arise. They seem to “feel” less emotion, but their bodies reveal greater stressors. Older workers may be more vulnerable to heart and cardiovascular problems if they remain in high-pressure jobs or situations.
Emotional stress can precipitate heart problems
Emotional stress can precipitate severe left ventricular heart valve dysfunction in patients who do not appear to have coronary artery disease. This reversible condition, called myocardial stunning, cardiac stunning, or myocardial stress, is brought on by severe emotional stress. Research supports the phenomenon that severe emotional stress and distress, such as the breakup, loss, or death of a loved one, can release a rush of stress hormones that cause the heart muscle to contract and spasm, possibly leading to serious complications and even loss of life.
Emotions affect blood cells
Photos of frozen water crystals imbued with different emotions appeared in the book The Hidden Messages in Water by Japanese researcher Masaru Emoto. Inspired by these photos, Rebecca Marina attempted to replicate her experiment by photographing her own blood samples on slides while eliciting specific emotions in herself.
She focused first on sadness. In this photograph, her blood cells seemed to take on the formation of tears and were seen to be moving rapidly (rather than slowly and lazily as might be expected) with a large number of predominant white blood cells, rather than in a normal blood sample.
when she felt afraidthe blood cells moved rapidly and frantically with an increased number of white blood cells and then stopped moving abruptly, as if exhausted.
feelings of love it produced a slower, more placid motion and some glistening substance in the fluid. Interestingly, when she felt love, the blood cells in the “sadness” slide that had remained on the screen began to change. In other words, even when her blood was no longer inside her body, her feelings of love actually affected the movement, shape, and quality of her blood cells on the slide.
But the most amazing effect was when he focused on Divine Mother or spiritual love and peace. The flowing part of the blood became clear, the movement of the cells was placid, and the cells just slid. The white blood cells shown had a bright white center and a pulsation in that center almost like a heartbeat! And some of the cells actually took on the shape of a heart. (EFT – Emotional Freedom Technique Investigation)
