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INDEX |
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DID YOU KNOW? |
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Page reviewed June 2010
A REVISED LOOK AT HEALTH AND WELLBEING
The object of this section of the website is to get you thinking!
In this country we tend to latch on to certain concepts, whether of not they are accurate. If you want to know why then attend one of my Dissonance Workshops. This is particularly true of people at the top who, having made a statement endow it with all their ego strength and are then reluctant to admit they may be wrong as it would make them appear fallible.
In my practice and in TOW we use what works – we tend to be eclectic and pragmatic. So where does my opinion differ from that of the establishment! In my opinion and experience weight, diet and exercise are not the key components to health and wellbeing.
Unfortunately we have very powerful, vocal lobbies in this country who latch onto one or other of these to the exclusion of all the rest and certainly to the exclusion of “whole person health”. Have you come across the “diet” or “dieting” lobby. Nothing will deter them from their fixed ideas. This will not help them reach “Optimum Health and Wellbeing”.
There are a multitude of facets of health and wellbeing. Just taking one or two to the exclusion of the rest is not a sensible thing to do. I don’t believe that our health depends on “choosing our parents carefully” either, as I was informed last year. In general, although your relatives may have been the sickest people in the world and died young, your genetic makeup only predisposes you - you do not have to go the same way. My mother had a host of stress related problems and I was going the same way. I’ve managed to turn the tide and I’m certainly having a much better quality of life than she had.
We all know deep down that the elements that prevent us moving towards optimum health and wellbeing are such things as rows with colleagues and relatives, overwork, and material and spiritual poverty amongst many others. Let’s go through some of the research findings that are not usually broadcast in quite the vocal way that the others are.
A NEW LOOK AT HEART DISEASE
We are told that the traditional risk factors for heart disease are genetic makeup, high cholesterol, being overweight, smoking, high blood pressure and lack of exercise. But did you know that:
1) Over 50% of people who have their first heart attack cannot be linked to any of these factors.
2) 8 out of 10 people who have at least 3 of the risk factors never have a heart attack.
3) Most people who do have heart attacks do not have most of the risk factors.
4) Friedman and Rosenman found that stress and the Type A Behaviour pattern significantly increase the risk of heart attacks and produce a seven times higher incidence of heart disease. The Type A behaviour pattern includes rushing all the time and an aggressive tendency when things hold you up, a very competitive nature, an inability to wait (i.e. I must have it / It must happen now, for example), trying to do 10 things at once etc. I’ll talk more about this at some other point.
5) After many years of meticulous research, Drs Virginia and Redford Williams at the Duke University Medical School discovered that the toxic part of Type A syndrome isn’t perfectionism, time pressure, or doing many things at once – it’s an attitude of angry cynicism, hostility, and judgementalness. If you have colleagues who stress you by behaving this way take heart. Their heart attack is likely to be on its’ way.
6) In his 1988 landmark study Dr Hans Eysenck of the University of London reported that unmanaged reactions to stress were more predictive of death from cancer and heart disease than cigarette smoking.
7) In a 10 year study people who were unable to effectively manage their stress had a 40% higher death rate than non stressed individuals.
8) A Harvard Medical School study of 1,623 heart attack survivors found that when subjects got angry during emotional conflicts, their risks of subsequent heart attacks was more than double that of those that remain calm.
9) A 20 year study on over 1,700 older men conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health found that worry about social conditions, health, and personal finances significantly increased the risk of CHD.
10) In one study of 202 professional women, tension between career and personal commitment to spouse, children, and friends was the factor that differentiated those with heart disease from those that were healthy.
11) According to a Mayo Clinic study of individuals with heart disease, psychological stress was the strongest predictor of future cardiac events, including cardiac death, cardiac arrest, and heart attack.
12) The majority of first heart attacks occur on a Monday morning between 8-9am. I wonder why? SO WHY ISN’T MONDAY MORNING DOWN AS A HIGH RISK FACTOR?
13) A Massachusetts study looking into this found that two key psychological factors seemed to be responsible: job dissatisfaction and lack of joy. Dr Larry Dossey has summed it up as “Joyless striving”.
14) An international study of 2,829 people between the ages of 55 and 85 found that individuals who reported the highest levels of personal “mastery” – feelings of control over life events – had a nearly 60% lower risk of death compared to those who felt relatively helpless in the face of life’s challenges.
15) In the aftermath of a heart attack, the greatest predictors of recovery aren’t physiological factors – such as an arterial blockage and the condition of the heart itself – but emotional factors. A startling report by the Secretary of the US Federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfare revealed that job satisfaction and “overall happiness” are the factors most likely to determine a patients recovery.
16) Heart disease prevention programmes focusing on psychological components have been shown to be effective in reducing the risk of heart attacks and even reversing pre-existing heart disease. Dean Ornish has shown that significant changes in life style, including a less angry, hostile interaction with others, can actually reverse heart disease and unclog arteries without surgery.
17) Love and caring seems to be an important component of reducing the risk of CHD. Men who have a relationship with a loving significant other have a 50% reduction in heart attacks and angina. If there was a pill that did this it would be proclaimed a miracle drug. For more on this see “Did You Know” 2 & 3. Click below.
18) Paul Pearsall, whilst talking to a group of heart attack patients and their spouses in Seattle, Washington, discovered that sexual activity was never mentioned with regard to heart disease and yet when he quizzed the audience he found that for more than a year prior to their heart attack, they had not been sexually active. In “The Heart’s Code”, Paul Pearsall goes on to say - “Current research on the sexual lives of heart patients shows that more than half of heart attack victims have one thing in common – they did not have any sexual activity of any kind for the entire year proceeding their heart attack.
19) Another study also showed the impact of erotic deprivation of the heart. Twelve hundred men and five hundred women were confidentially interviewed about their sexual activity in the hours, days and years preceding their heart attack. From these interviews, it was learned that lack of sexual activity was one characteristic shared by those who had a heart attack.
This study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world, yet this finding has been largely ignored by most physicians.”
Paul makes the observation that “If it was discovered that over half of the five hundred thousand people who have a heart attack each year (in America) never ate carrots, there would be a rush to the vegetable market and “Bugs Bunny” would be the American Heart Associations poster child.”
Being 5-10 years behind the Americans as usual I’ve just received a “Health Which Research Bulletin” that mentions the latest research from Bristol University on the issue. They looked to see if they could find a connection between sexual activity and first stroke or heart attack. They concluded “that middle-aged men should be heartened to know that frequent sexual intercourse is not likely to result in a substantial increase in their risk of having a stroke and that it may even protect against fatal coronary events such as heart attack.”
WELL - AND WHY AREN’T WE TOLD ALL THESE THINGS INSTEAD OF BEING PLAGUED WITH DIETARY PROPAGANDA?
On the next page I will tell you all about the Roseto Study which took all the traditional values of the causes of CHD and turned them on their heads!!!
In the meantime you might like to read Paul Pearsall’s book “The Hearts Code” from which many of the above were taken. If you would like references to any of the items ring me on 01934 876181 or E-mail me.
Click here to go to the Roseto Affect - Did You Know 2? |
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Copyright © Derek Webster 2003 This edition 2009 |
