Negative emotions reduce blood flow to the heart . That's what psychiatrist Elizabeth Gullette, M.D., and collagues at Duke University Medical Center discovered when they rigged 132 heart-disease sufferers with portable monitors that recorded blood flow into their hearts. For 48 hours, the particpants were asked to keep diaries of their activities and emotions. Sadness, frustration, and general stress doubled the likelihood of significantly reduced blood flow, a condition that can cause angina and contribute to heart attack. Intense negative emotions tripled this risk.
Anger doubles risk of heart attack .
Harvard's Murray Mittleman, M.D., questioned 1,122 men and 501 women who had had heart attacks about what they'd been feeling shortly beforehand. Many had felt intense anger. Mittleman calculated that anger raised heart attack risk 2.3 times, and that risk remained high for about two hours after the anger-trigering event. Other studies have shown that anger increases heart rate and raise blood pressure, both of which can contribute to heart attack. Job stress increases atherosclerosis .