Dr. John Sarno describes his own experience with the link between psychological factors, in particular, repressed anger and hostility, in the onset of migraine headaches.
According to Sarno, he suffered from migraines for six years at a time when his medical responsibilities and family life caused him a great deal of stress. After reading about the possible connection between repressed anger and migraines, he began focusing on conscious recognition of possible sources of his anger whenever he experienced the visual disturbances that normally precipitated his own migraines. To his surprise, his migraines never again materialized, even though he still experiences the visual disturbances to this day (Sarno, 1998).
Coronary Heart Disease:
Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) is the number one medical cause of death in the United States. Certainly, many physical factors contribute to the incidence of coronary blockages, including family medical history, high blood pressure, natural levels of hormone and cholesterol production, obesity, and smoking. In 1959, Friedman and Rosenman first suggested the link between psychological issues and the development of heart disease. In their book, Type a Behavior and Your Heart, they defined certain types of mental responses as contributing...
Those factors included workaholism, aggressiveness, competitiveness, and quickness to anger.
Subsequent studies isolated two psychological factors, in particular: namely, anger and hostility, as the most reliable predictors of personality traits likely to be associated with eventual heart disease (Sarno, 1998). These, so-called Type a personality traits contribute to CHD in at least two different ways: they increase the body's production of arterial plaque and cholesterol, and they stress the heart and arterial valves by significantly increasing heart rate and blood pressure for prolonged periods of time.
More recently, patients predisposed to CHD by virtue of family history and specific biological factors have been cautioned about minimizing additional external risk factors. Nowadays, patients known to be at risk for CHD also routinely receive psychologically-based therapies such as biofeedback and meditation, in conjunction with their medications, precisely, to reduce as many CHD contributors as possible.
References
Pavoratti, L. (1982) Pavoratti: My Own Story.
Warner Books: New York
Sarno, J. (1998) the Mindbody Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing the Pain.
Warner Books: New York)
