All Is Well: Heal Your Body With Medicine, Affirmations, and Intuition (19 page)

crease the risk of breast cysts and other breast problems.

The heart represents the center of joy and security, so heart

problems and high blood pressure are associated with long-standing

emotional problems and lack of joy. Therefore, the health of the

heart as a whole, and more specifically in terms of diseases relat-

ing to high blood pressure and high cholesterol, depends on your

ability to find joy in life and express that joy in terms of emotions.

Resistance and a refusal to see what is in front of you are associat-

ed with arteriosclerosis, a disease in which arteries become narrow

and hardened, making them resistant to blood flow. Squeezing all

the joy out of the heart in favor of money or position is related to

heart attacks. If we look at respiratory or lung problems through

the prism of Louise’s affirmation theory, we see that if you have

trouble breathing, you are afraid or refuse to fully take in life.

And, finally, a tendency to overmother others, put your partner’s

emotions first, and fail to nourish yourself is connected to breast

problems, including cysts, tenderness, and lumps.

So what does science tell us about the mind-body connection

between negative thoughts and behaviors and the fourth emo-

tional center? Does medical science support the theory that affir-

mations can help the health of our heart, breasts, and lungs?

Yes, it does! By transforming our anxiety, frustration, depres-

sion, and the “heartache” of lost love, we can change the health of

our heart, lungs, and breasts.1 In fact, study after study has shown

the connection between how emotions are expressed and illness

in the organs of the fourth emotional center.

Just looking at heart ailments, we can see an example of this

in the ways men and women experience heart attacks. Women, as

a whole, experience illnesses in the heart differently from men.

When having a heart attack, men tend to have a more distinc-

tive pattern of symptoms: the classical left-sided chest pain that

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radiates to the jaw and down the left arm. Not so with women.

When having a heart attack, women do not have one stereotyped

pattern of symptoms. They may have a sudden onset of digestive

distress under their rib cage accompanied by anxiety as well as a

host of other symptoms.2

Science has shown that there is a link from brain to heart, so

perhaps this difference in the expression of heart attacks between

men and women is associated with their brain wiring. With this

in mind, we can look at the styles of heart attack and see that

they mirror the way emotions are handled in the brain. Women’s

brains are structured to constantly use the information from both

fact and emotion, while men tend to try to brush emotion aside

and use mostly the logic area of the brain. Because women’s brains

tend to be more integrated, women have a much easier time put-

ting their emotions into words and thus want to engage in a dis-

cussion about difficult issues. Men have a much harder time doing

this, and as a result these emotions are likely to be shunted into

physical or physiological reactions.3 Maybe men’s explosive heart

attacks occur because emotions finally have to come out in some

way—they work their way out in a more abrupt and overt fashion.

I don’t know . . . and neither does science. But when it comes to

heart attacks, it seems that men’s hearts tend to boil while wom-

en’s hearts more or less simmer; the emotions and the heart attack

symptoms seem to relate.

There are other important connections between heart attack

and emotions that are borne out by science. For example, people

who have difficulty handling a major loss, such as the death of a

loved one, are more likely to die of heart attacks and heart disease

in the first year of their bereavement. We also often see heart at-

tacks directly following retirement or the loss of a career.4 The

feelings of hopelessness and failure that come with both of these

losses can be very powerful and affect your heart health.5 In fact,

in one study they were shown to have the same risk for causing

heart disease as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. Not one or two

cigarettes—an entire pack!6

Other studies have linked heart disease and heart attacks with

the personality traits of people considered to be “Type A.” These

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Sweet Emotion

people tend to thrive on being aggressive and overly competitive.

To maintain this state of being, their bodies require a constant

drip of stress hormones and this drives up blood pressure and clogs

arteries.7 But we can change our thoughts and positively affect the

health of our heart. For example, one study followed a group of

men, all Type A personalities who had suffered heart attacks. The

men who were counseled on how to change their thoughts and

behavior, especially about their long-standing emotional prob-

lems connected to expressing and moving beyond their hostility

and anger, had a lower recurrence of heart problems than those

who received no counseling.8

Scientists have also found that suppressed emotions—espe-

cially anxiety, depression, and anger—play a role in creating hy-

pertension, a hardening of the blood vessels. So what’s the domino

effect that takes us from depression to hypertension? Depression

causes the brain to release norepinephrine, which stresses the ad-

renal glands. This in turn causes the adrenal glands to release too

much cortisol, which starts a cascade of inflammatory substances,

including cytokines. These cytokines cause oxygen to become

“free radicals,” which make any cholesterol in the blood harden

and cement onto the arteries, causing them to clog and making

blood pressure rise into hypertension range. So there you go. The

domino effect of depression to hypertension, emotions moving

from the brain to the heart. And it just shows that roadblocks

to emotions can cause roadblocks in the flow of blood. A simi-

lar inflammatory response is seen in people dealing with chronic

frustration.9

The connection between suppressed emotion and the health

of blood vessels has also been shown in numerous studies that

looked at a syndrome called stress cardiomyopathy, also known

as “broken-heart syndrome.” This condition can occur following

a variety of emotional stressors such as grief (for example, after

the death of a loved one), fear, extreme anger, and surprise. Stud-

ies found that patients who stuff their anger deep inside, leaving

it unexpressed, experience a higher rate of blood vessel tighten-

ing, which drives up blood pressure and reduces blood flow to the

heart.10

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In general, science supports the claim that suppressed emo-

tions, especially anxiety, depression, and anger, play a role in

blood pressure problems.11

The same connection between expressing emotions and health

is true for our lungs.12 In one study, asthma sufferers were taught

“emotional intelligence,” or mindfulness therapy, and it success-

fully improved their respiratory symptoms. The study taught them

how to name the emotion they were experiencing; indicate what

scenario precipitated it; and choose a healthy, balanced response

to soothe the emotion. This practice of acting with emotional in-

telligence decreased their tendency toward bronchial asthma at-

tacks and improved their quality of life.13

Scientific research has also shown that emotional health af-

fects the health of the breasts. Specifically, there is a relationship

between lifelong overnurturing of others, an inability to express

anger, and risk for breast cancer. In fact, women who depend on

child rearing as a source of self-esteem and a feminine identity are

at greater risk for breast cancer.14

Perhaps women with breast concerns (and I am one of them)

think they are taking care of other people by holding in their

emotions. But in reality, martyrdom really doesn’t nurture anyone

and it’s bad for your breasts. Long-term unhealthy expression of

anger, depression, and anxiety disrupts the normal levels of the

stress hormone cortisol, which may dampen the body’s immune

capacity to prevent cancer.15 One study showed that 75 percent of

the women who had breast cancer tended to be self-sacrificing and

nurtured others more than they nurtured themselves.16 And when

it comes to recovering from breast cancer, it has been shown that

receiving loving support is as important as the love and nurtur-

ance you give to others.17

So now that we understand the science behind the fourth

emotional center affirmation theory, what do we actually do to

heal these illnesses?

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Sweet Emotion

Heart Disorders

People who suffer from heart-related health problems—

whether chest pain, heart palpitations, high blood pressure, faint-

ing spells, or blocked arteries—have difficulties expressing their

emotions. They have a huge backlog of bottled-up emotions just

waiting to break out—and they do every once in a while, in wild,

passionate fits of anger or frustration or an unexplained and unex-

pected sudden retreat. The swings between emotionlessness and

fiery passion make it hard for these folks to relate to the people

around them, and they sometimes become loners rather than deal

with the anxiety that relationships bring with them.

Heart-related symptoms—even those that seem benign—can

be serious, so see a doctor if you experience any signs that your

heart health may be in trouble. But it’s also important to take a

longer-term approach to health by changing your behaviors and

thought patterns.

Listen for the messages your body is sending you about the

emotions underlying your health problems, and then work to

change your mind-set through affirmations. For example, heart

issues in general stem from long-standing emotional issues that

have hardened the heart and blocked happiness and joy. So we

need to open the heart and let joy in. A good general affirmation

to counter the negative feelings is “Joy. Joy. Joy. I lovingly allow

joy to flow through my mind and body and experience.” Harden-

ing of the arteries, or arteriosclerosis, comes from a resistant inten-

tion, hardened narrow-mindedness, and a refusal to see the good

in life. If you have these problems, help yourself with the affirma-

tion “I am completely open to life and to joy. I choose to see with

love.” Cholesterol concerns have to do with a fear of or inability to

accept happiness. To open the clogged channels of joy related to

cholesterol, you would use the affirmation “I choose to love life.

My channels of joy are wide open. It is safe to receive.” To lessen

unresolved and long-standing emotional problems that are associ-

ated with high blood pressure, use the affirmation “I joyously re-

lease the past. I am at peace.” These are a few of the most common

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heart issues. For more specific affirmations Louise recommends,

look up your specific ailment in the table on page 183.

The important work you need to do to protect your heart

health is to become more in touch with your emotions and learn

to express them in ways that will help you move through them.

Make sure to pay attention to your feelings—but don’t judge

them. Try to pinpoint what brought on the emotion. By putting

your analytical skills to the test and dissecting your feelings to

determine their origin and character, you are connecting your

problem-solving left brain to your emotional right brain. This will

help you learn to express those tricky emotions: first to yourself,

and then to the people around you. Paying attention to your emo-

tions will also help you chart your progress. If you are still having

trouble managing your feelings around other people, you might

notice a panicky or irritable feeling in certain situations. It is im-

portant to work your way into these situations slowly so you don’t

get overwhelmed and have to retreat or explode.

You may also want to work on getting in touch with your emo-

tions through practices such as meditation and journaling. There

are even sources online that give lists of feeling words. Check out

these lists and become familiar with them. Just being able to rec-

ognize and define the words that people around you are using will

help increase your emotional vocabulary.

Once you are able to express yourself, cultivating relationships

will become easier. And this is important. You must do all you

can to keep yourself from living a solitary life. Try to plan various