Emotions and health part 2

When she had rested, the doctor explained: those were some of the physical signs of great anxiety. Rapid deep breath-ing produced many such signs in any person. When we are afraid or angry, a part of the brain called the hypothalamus prepares the body for action. The heart speeds up to rush blood to our muscles. We breathe hard to fill the blood with oxygen hormones are released to bring the nervous system to a pitch of alarmed readiness. Sometimes our conscious mind, seeing no reason to be angry or afraid, may block out our awareness of anxiety .yet all the while the hypothalamus continues the alarm.

    Fran’s emotional alarm had evidently been triggered by the temporary separation from her husband.”I feel upset if anyone close leaves me,” fran admitted to the doctor.’’ when I was a child, my parents left on a trip and were both killed in an accident. When Jim left-the first time in our marriage he’s been away more than overnight-I felt real panic. I pulled myself together, but I guess the fear was still three.” Fran was given tranquilizers and saw the doctor three times to talk over her fears. The symptoms vanished in two weeks.

     

         Everyone knows that the mind evokes certain automatic responses from the body. Think about food and you salivate. Words or thoughts can prepare sexual organs for function, and cause a blush or goose-flesh. But more serious effects can be wrought by emotion. Take the case of ruth Chadwick .

      Four times ruth had conceived a child but miscarried. On her fifth pregnancy, the obstetrician asked ruth how she felt about motherhood. He learned that, though she wanted a child, girlhood tales of the rigors of labor had terrified her. The doctor decided to let ruth talk out her fears at each prenatal visit. With no other treatment, Ruth delivered a healthy full-term baby.

Why? Researchers at the University of Colorado have said that a woman fearful of pregnancy might, after weeks or months of carrying a baby, produce special hormones of a type normally produced only at the end of pregnancy. They cause contractions, dilate the opening of the cervix, and bring about birth. Indeed, many women like Ruth Chadwick, who habitually miscarry, may need only a little office counseling to carry a child to term.