How do emotions directly affect my physical health?

Autora. Yaymelis Garcia Leyva. Master's Student in Clinical Social Work AGMU Tampa, Florida.

Human health is not just a matter of high technology, operating rooms, and state-of-the-art medicines. When it comes to human beings, Health Sciences cannot ignore what it means to be a person, someone with their own, unique and unrepeatable life, where the subjective element, particularly the emotional one, is decisive. The article addresses, then, the importance of emotions for human health, of which physical health, subjective well-being, and social functioning are fundamental components.

For example, the Academic Course in which a group of students completes their pre-university studies concludes and the final results are published:

- A young student is told that he has turned out to be the best graduate of his class; a deep sense of pride invades him.

- Another young man from the same class is informed that he has failed all classes and has to repeat the course: a deep feeling of sadness invades him.

- A third young man is told that his notes are withheld for a second review: a deep feeling of uncertainty invades him.

Pride, happiness, sadness, and uncertainty, are all terms that go through the complex internal world of people, through the world of affections, feelings, passions, and experiences. In any case, the unifying term that science has preferred to use to refer to all these phenomena is the concept of EMOTION, often disqualified by inflexible scientific positions, but increasingly inevitably incorporated into professional practice by specialists who work with people in the “REAL WORLD”. And is that everything that colors the daily existence of people has an important emotional component; it is practically impossible to know and understand what a person says or does without understanding their emotional world and the conditions that generated it.

In other words, from many directions, emotions play a substantial role in people's existence, in their health, well-being, and quality of life. And it is that, like no other psychobiological and at the same time psychosocial construct, emotion strongly expresses both the meaning that the events that occur daily in their environment have for people and the implication that, as a whole, a person has in the effective adaptive responses to the demands of their environment.

Its study, however, becomes extremely complex, since it is a phenomenologically intra-individual process, but its most solid roots have an inter-individual connotation, derived from the relationship with other people and from the evaluations that are made of how these people satisfy, or not, the most important individual needs and requirements.

In this sense, emotions can have both positive and negative connotations and, most of the time, are mixed. The valence assumed by an emotion depends on many factors, among which perhaps the most outstanding is the one that has to do with the subjective component, with what is an expression of well-being or discomfort with what is happening, beyond what objectively occurs in the transactions of the person with his environment: a person can feel extraordinarily sad despite the fact that everything around him is going objectively (?) well and, vice versa, a person can be very happy when around him everything that happens is misfortune.

What is desirable, and perhaps healthier, is that there is congruence between what objectively happens and what goes through the experiential world of the person, although sometimes there is an abyss between the two and what is produced is a frank incongruity as occurs in the severe pictures of psychopathological alterations.

Similarly, an emotion can be classified as positive or negative, beyond its internal phenomenological component, depending on its adaptive consequences. An emotion rarely occurs in an existential vacuum, it generally occurs in a context in which the person has to give an adaptive response to a certain problematic situation in their environment; certain emotions facilitate the solution of problems, while others hinder it, despite the valence of their subjective connotation:

Sadness is not pleasant for anyone, but a period of sadness - that is not paralyzing! - can be very productive to elaborate on the legitimate mourning for the loss of a loved one.

In the same way, the gratifying joy can be very egocentric, making the person "rest on their laurels" and not mobilize the individual to solve problems that may compromise their future well-being.

Another element that can tell us about the positive or negative nature of emotional life is its impact on physiological processes and the person's physical health. Advances in psychoneuroimmunological research in recent decades are a full expression of this:

Depression not only has a subjective impact of impotence, discomfort, and hopelessness but also has a "depressing" impact on the body as a whole, particularly on the immune system, responsible for defending the body from both external attacks (bacteria, viruses) as well as from attacks by the body itself (eg autoimmune diseases) and which, when “depressed”, increase the body's vulnerability to possible attacks on its health; and vice versa, there are numerous studies that support the potentiating effect of positive emotions on the functioning of the immune system, how many terminally ill patients do not prolong their lives and their quality beyond all expectations by assuming an optimistic and coping position? active?

Despite this, specialized literature, and even non-specialized literature, has focused on the study of negative emotions rather than positive ones, perhaps for this reason, in recent years there has been an important movement towards what has given to be called a Positive Psychology (not positivist, which is another matter!), focused more on the strengths and opportunities of people than on their weaknesses and threats. However, studies on the most relevant negative emotions that are declared in the specialized literature such as depression, anxiety, and aggressiveness still prevail.

There are many other negative emotions that are no less harmful, such as hatred, envy, and jealousy, with a more specific connotation, but also harmful to the person's health and well-being.

In any case, emotions, a legitimate manifestation of that expression that we use so much that man is a biopsychosocial being, have a direct or indirect impact -according to Richard Lazarus, one of the most prestigious researchers on the subject- on somatic health, the subjective well-being and social functioning.

In any case, I prefer to conclude by reversing the proposal, stating that positive emotions (pride, self-fulfillment, joy, love, etc.) are capable of promoting higher levels of health in the same components that are damaged by negative emotions:

- Somatic health is optimized by a person's joy of living, facilitating things as apparently simple as the systematic practice of physical exercises.

- Subjective well-being increases when the person loves himself more, considering himself a worthy, valuable, and “kind” human being (in the sense of feeling worthy of being loved).

- Consequently, you will be better prepared to establish productive and rewarding interpersonal relationships with the significant people around you.

The theme of emotional life is much more complex than what we have presented, but for health professionals, it is basic knowledge that is consistent with the age-old affirmation that "there are no diseases, only sick people".

Knowing that emotional life, not by declared faith but by real knowledge, can be decisive in the maintenance, restoration, or optimization of health, is something that should adorn the knowledge of all those who are related to the human Health-Illness Process.

References

Valiente Millan, Luisa. (marzo 21, 2017). Como influyen las emociones en nuestra salud.

Rivas, María Jesus. (febrero 17, 2015). Emociones que sanan. https://www.comunidad.madrid/servicios/salud/bienestar-emocional-salud

Por Gil, Marta. R