“All diseases come from nerves” - have you ever heard such a phrase?
In fact, such folk wisdom is a simplified version of the idea about the existence of psychosomatic diseases, that is, diseases whose development was provoked by the influence of negative mental or psychological factors, in particular, traumatic situations. The very concept of psychosomatics, which covers the relationship between the mental sphere and physical health, is broader than the concept of psychosomatic diseases. Psychosomatics includes the influence of somatic pathology on the psyche. These are mental somatogenic disorders, the patient’s reaction to the disease, types of the patient’s attitude towards the disease, etc. On the other hand, psychosomatics studies the influence of mental factors on the manifestations and course of somatic illness. And finally, psychosomatics include psychosomatic diseases themselves, that is, somatic diseases caused by mental factors (mental conflicts, traumatic situations, etc.).
Nowadays, no one denies the most important role of a person’s psychological state in the formation of the disease and in the treatment process. A certain emotional background can either lead to a speedy recovery or worsen the state of health. But there are diseases when mental factors not only influence the characteristics of the course of the disease, but can also become their cause - these are psychosomatic diseases such as hypertension, coronary heart disease (CHD), neurodermatitis, ulcerative colitis (UC), gastric ulcer and 12 duodenum. One way or another, it is impossible to deny the crucial role of psychotraumatic factors in the emergence and development of psychosomatic diseases, including the occurrence of hypertension.
High blood pressure due to psychosomatics
The word “pressure” itself reflects the metaphysical meaning of this disease. Hypertension affects those who are “pressured” by circumstances, people, debt, guilt, etc.
Usually these are very responsible people who want to keep everything under control, take on too much, and set too high goals for themselves. The body simply cannot cope with the overload. Often, blood counts increase in active people who are under stress for a long time and do not allow themselves to rest and relax.
Even doctors admit that the main cause of arterial hypertension is psychosomatics. Blood pressure rises in people who often experience anger, are hostile and irritable, and are stubborn.
If you are tired of the constant struggle with the disease and want to get rid of it once and for all, Konstantin Dovlatov’s free webinar “How to stop going around in a circle of generic scenarios and take life into your own hands” will help you.
Generic scenarios are one of the determining factors of our life difficulties.
What situations cause hypertension (if it has psychological causes)
For women, as a rule, this is communication with their husband. Anger at him and resentment.
First, an expectation arises, “how a husband should act,” then a reaction to the fact that he acts in his own way. This causes rejection and anger. Sometimes your irritation is suppressed, but negative emotions continue.
The girl thinks about a situation that haunts her, and at this time her body experiences the influence of her psychological state. From a biological point of view, it consists of metabolic processes that are activated at the moment of tension. But the voltage is constant, and it does not discharge.
So anger also causes resentment.
This takes some time to form. But once everything is set in stone, communication becomes very difficult. Spouses begin to communicate through reactions that turn on unconsciously.
From the outside it may seem that the cause of a woman’s hypertension is her husband, who does not give her peace. But, in fact, these are her own internal states, her expectations, anger, resentment, suppression and inability to work on herself.
Sometimes children can also be a trigger.
A mother raising several children at a time can become impatient. In such cases, irritability manifests itself, for example, in response to a child’s slowness (if the child is in no hurry to get dressed), or makes a mess.
And “everything must be perfect.” This provokes tension. However, in another case, another mother will not have such a reaction. She will just look at it all calmly.
High blood pressure: psychosomatics of Louise Hay
This author is also of the opinion that old unresolved emotional problems, grievances, and dissatisfaction with life in the present lead to hypertension. According to Louise Hay, blood symbolizes joy, the desire to live in happiness. But when you live in constant stress, fear and anxiety, this can lead to increased blood pressure.
To reduce pressure, the writer recommends letting go of old grievances and situations and saying special affirmations, for example: “I happily consign the past to oblivion. There is peace in my soul!”
What causes low blood pressure in women
Here, some often report fainting and insufficient blood supply to the arms and legs. There are dizziness, lack of mood, chronic drowsiness associated with psychosomatics.
Such a person is not used to struggling with circumstances and going against the flow. It is much more convenient for him to go with the flow and not encounter numerous obstacles on the path of life. To some extent, he does not have enough adaptation to life’s difficulties, there is not enough internal energy, internal fuel, which is reflected in low blood pressure (hypotension).
Causes:
- dislike in childhood
- doubts and lack of self-confidence,
- unwillingness to take responsibility,
- Difficulty standing up for yourself.
Goal setting helps here: set goals and implement one after another. This will allow you to believe in yourself, and then act, learn and act again.
Living with hypertension
So, if you have problems with high blood pressure in psychosomatics, then most likely you suffer from overexertion. You constantly worry: about your children, about your work, about world peace.
You listen to the news, and your heart shrinks with fear, or you seethe with indignation. You have been assigned a responsible task, and you do everything possible and impossible to complete it on time. Your life is full of worries and worries.
Common situation? Unfortunately, it is very difficult for the body to live in this mode. Sooner or later it fails. This is often expressed by hypertension and other diseases.
How to get rid of high blood pressure? Psychosomatics knows the answer!
- Step 1
- stop worrying about anything, control everyone and everything. - Step 2
- let go of all old situations that still cause strong emotions, such as grievances, fears, anger. - Step 3
- learn to see the positive, manage your emotions. - Step 4
: Allow yourself to rest and relax. - Step 5
- do what you like, communicate with people with whom you feel good.
However, it is easy to say, but not so easy to do. After all, old psychological traumas often prevent us from living joyfully. It is difficult to cope with them without the help of an experienced psychologist. At the same time, you can go to psychotherapy for years, so much stuff accumulates in us. Are there faster ways? Fortunately, yes! One of these fast and effective methods is “Spiritual Integration,” created by the famous Russian psychologist Konstantin Dovlatov. This method is quite young, but it has already been tried by thousands of people, and it has greatly helped many. Moreover, high blood pressure according to psychosomatics can be defeated once and for all with this method!
Hypertonic disease
Treatment of hypertension (illustration)
Ekaterina V. (38 years old) has been forced to constantly take antihypertensive drugs due to high blood pressure over the past 3 years. She underwent a special examination, as a result of which she was diagnosed with hypertension. She herself understands that the disease developed on a nervous basis - due to excessive psychological stress at work. Ekaterina is the director of a successful private company. Work is actually not time-regulated, so production issues have to be resolved not only in the office, but also at home. Lives with his elderly father in a three-room apartment. Her sex life is limited to infrequent intercourse with an elderly married man whom she has known for more than 10 years. The love that once brought them together has long passed, but the sexual partnership continues to be stereotypically pleasant.
This story has a happy ending. As a result of the treatment, the patient managed, firstly, to master the role of an adult woman; secondly, find a lover among your colleagues and marry him; thirdly, to conceive and give birth to a child, and shift the role of director to her husband. The remarkable thing is that the increase in hypertension during pregnancy predicted by the gynecologist not only did not happen, but on the contrary, blood pressure returned to normal.
How it works?
First you need to learn the method in training or online. You learn to enter a state of high vibrations, which in itself has a very beneficial effect on your body. Because hypertension occurs in a state of low vibrations, when you feel guilt, fear, anger, etc. Being at 500+ is a state of unconditional love for the world and expanded consciousness, you will be able to see the root causes of any disease or problem and heal them.
Then you find resources in these situations, integrate them into yourself and begin to look at what happened in a completely new way, experiencing gratitude and lightness.
Psychosomatics: cardiovascular diseases (hypertension)
From the author:
Notes on diseases related to psychosomatics
Diseases of the heart and blood vessels in economically developed countries are the most common cause of death. In recent years, cardiologists have increasingly attached importance to psychosocial risk factors and their relationship with somatic factors (Burns and Katkin, 1993; Burns et al. 1993; Cohen et al. 1994; Contrada, 1994; Dembroski, MacDougall, 1983; Miller et al. 1996). Lifestyle, personality attitudes and a person’s position in his professional and family environment are important for blood circulation and its physiological regulation. Somatic risk factors such as poor diet, obesity, smoking and alcohol abuse, which reflect personality characteristics, have long been known (Bräutigam et al. 1999).
The psychosomatic component is primarily characteristic of the following diseases of the cardiovascular system:
essential arterial hypertension; cardiac ischemia; heart rhythm disturbances; cardiac neurosis of fear.
The heart and blood vessels are involved in all forms of life, although normally a person is not aware of this. During physical and mental stress, the work of the heart begins to be perceived in the form of increased heartbeat or tachycardia. Unlike motor skills or breathing, the activity of the heart and blood vessels is excluded from direct human perception. And only in certain borderline states and disorders is the heart perceived consciously. Even in cases of severe disorders, for example with congenital heart disease, cardiac phenomena are subjectively perceived only in the later stages of decompensation. However, even in these cases, a kind of uncertainty arises: “although the heart is mine, it is somehow indefinite and cannot be controlled, like, for example, a limb.” This feeling of uncertainty already contains the germ of fear. This is the basis for the assumption about the possibility of phobic personality development.
The mental sphere also determines the functions of the heart and blood vessels, just like the somatic one. Activity and rest, sleep or wakefulness, mental alertness and excitement, externally expressed or suppressed feelings are associated with various states of the circulatory system. The connection between the activity of the heart and emotions is reflected in many idioms and sayings.
Despite the fact that changes in the functioning of the heart are equally manifested in both positive and negative feelings, pathological disorders in the cardiovascular system are associated with fear, anger, rage, melancholy and other negative emotions, which lead to the fact that, for example, fear of loneliness, in case of danger of attack, there is a feeling as if the heart begins to pound in the throat and in the head area. The resulting release of adrenaline causes vasoconstriction, increased heart rate and increased myocardial contraction, which, in turn, leads to a state of anxiety and fear.
The heart is usually associated with love.
The question arises: why does a break in a relationship or the loss of a loved one often lead to heart disease?
If a mother does not give her child enough warmth, he will show feelings towards his doll that he would like to feel in his mother. The doll becomes a substitute for a loved one. Some cardiologists suggest that sometimes the heart turns into a symbol of a loved one and all those feelings that for some reason cannot be expressed openly are transferred to it. A person is afraid to show others his dissatisfaction. A woman does not dare to object to her loved one and in order to reduce melancholy and avoid depression, she tyrannizes her own heart, taking out her irritation on it.
Repressed hostility plays a major role in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases
(Barefoot et al. 1996; Barefoot et al. 1994; Benotsch et al. 1997; Siegman and Smith 1994; Siegman et al. 1992) and Type A behavior (Booth-Kewley and Friedman 1987).
Hypertension
Personality picture
Since in most cases it is not possible to clearly date the onset of the disease, it is difficult to talk about the situation causing it
.
However, certain internal conflicts have been described as causal situations
(Gentry, et al. 1982; Irvine, et al. 1991; Saab and Schneiderman, 1993).
Arterial hypertension often begins when a person is in a situation of chronic tense anticipation (Grace, Graham, 1952).
Typical statements of hypertensive patients: “I must be ready for anything”, “I am the type that takes on all the difficulties”, “no one can stop me, I am ready for anything.” Provoking situations are often prolonged states of fear, lack of time and increasing tension. In addition, situations are described in which there is a possibility of defusing hostility and aggressiveness, but this does not happen due to inhibition or scrupulosity. Numerous experiments with both animals and people have shown that blood pressure increases with fear, anger and bitterness and that chronic emotional overstrain can lead to persistent hypertension
(Coeher, 1971, Groen et al., 1971, Angermeier, Peters, 1973; Cannon, 1953; Reindell et al. 1971).
It is generally accepted that hypertensive patients have chronically suppressed aggression associated with fear.
For patients with hypertension, a typical neurotic personality structure is described with a predominance of obsessive states, as a result of which internal and external conflicts often arise, which makes emotional release difficult
(Groen et al.,1971).
The fact that essential hypertension often occurs in members of the same family can be interpreted in the sense of "psychological inheritance"
(Hermann et al.,1989). Experimental studies show that patients with hypertension are prone to increased blood pressure even in situations that do not cause any changes in blood pressure in normotensive patients (Hodapp, Weyer, 1982).
According to Alexander (2002), the central point of the psychodynamics of a patient with essential hypertension is the constant struggle with the growing hostile-aggressive feeling. At the same time, there are difficulties in self-affirmation. Patients are afraid of losing the favor of other people and therefore control the manifestations of their hostility. As children, they are usually prone to fits of rage and aggression. Previously an aggressive child, an adult becomes emphatically compliant and cannot stand up for himself. Understanding the possibility of losing the affection of family and friends because of one’s aggressiveness forces the child to control his hostility and hide it. Patients with arterial hypertension constantly show irritability if they encounter insurmountable resistance. Their life forces them into the role of a “draft horse.” They get stuck in one job for many years and rarely change companies, even if they are underpaid. If they achieve a position of authority, it is difficult for them to become an authority for others. They do the work for others instead of establishing discipline. From this hyper-conscientious and extreme behavior with an excessive sense of responsibility, intensified feelings of anger, hostility and aggressiveness are born, which over time require more and more effort to contain them. This develops a vicious circle that leads to a chronic state of tension. The characteristic situation that provokes the disease is life conflicts that mobilize hostility and the desire for self-affirmation and at the same time create the impossibility of their free expression.
Initially, these traits were discovered in the observed behavior of patients. Further studies showed that, in comparison with normotonics, their perception of conflict and stress is altered. For example, flight controllers are at risk of increased pressure not only when they identify with their profession and are adaptive and courteous to coworkers, but also when they fail to perceive and deny job stress (Rose et al. 1978).
Direct interaction in the family also plays a role in the formation of hypertension, as shown in studies of conflict behavior in families with a hypertensive father, in which the family was studied as a clinical unity, based on a systemic view of symptoms
(Baer et al. 1959, 1933; Baer 1983).
The personality structure of a family member—for example, the conflict-aggressive impulse of a hypertensive patient—affects the interaction behavior of the family as a whole (“family accumulation” of essential hypertension). In every family, rules are formed between parents and children by which conflicts are regulated; in families with a hypertensive father, children have less effective ability to tolerate and resolve conflicts, as evidenced by the predominance of negative nonverbal communication in these families (for example, not giving an answer, turning their head away, avoiding eye contact). A variety of studies indicate that a limited perception of conflict and stress and conflict avoidance correlates with the appearance of high blood pressure, i.e., these are types of behavior that children acquire in the process of socialization in the family from a hypertensive father. This view could, along with the genetic component, reveal a complementary aspect of the possible replication of essential hypertension (Theorell, 1990; Luban-Plozza et al. 2000).
Family interaction is characterized by a kind of prohibition on speech or communication, which also affects the non-verbal sphere, as a result of which understanding, observing, controlling, restraining activities predominate, while giving, reporting, participating expressions rarely appear (Kroger, Petzold, 1985).
A single personality structure for all patients with arterial hypertension has not been established. However, given the wide distribution and wide variety of forms of the disease, this should not be expected.
Yet, among psychosomatically examined pre-selected patients, certain personality traits recur consistently. Hypertensive people are described as hardworking, committed, sociable people, with a great sense of responsibility. In this regard, they have internal and external conflicts from which they cannot emotionally distance themselves. In their specific attitude of modesty, they give up their needs for the benefit of others, wanting to receive their approval and not provoke aggression or hostility. It is these signs, described independently of each other by different researchers as willingness to help, shyness, chronically suppressed aggressiveness, that make up the manifest personality traits, which are of great importance for the formation of characteristic reactions of suppressing needs perceived as dangerous. The manifest features of perception of the environment and behavior in many hypertensive patients are a form of defense against their own aggressive impulses (Cottington et al. 1986; Diamond, 1982).
Most patients with essential hypertension usually do not have proper awareness of their illness. From a psychoanalytic position, outwardly incorrect neurotic behavior is ideologically justified by the desire to be active and help people. But even with this unfavorable initial situation, in some cases it is possible to achieve changes if, thanks to the maturation of the personality, its one-sided direction is eliminated and the person as a whole begins to navigate life in a new way.
Manifest personality traits of a patient with arterial hypertension
. His hard work and orderly behavior, contact, accuracy and conscientiousness are impressive, making him a seemingly pleasant, compliant patient. However, it should be remembered that in most cases a hypertensive patient does not verbalize his aggressiveness, ambition and desire for competition, which often remain latent. This can be felt if you try to have a lasting influence on the patient's lifestyle. Its low compliance with the necessary long-term therapeutic program, during which the patient usually cannot realize his needs and cannot even express his judgments and attitudes that are contrary to the therapeutic program, often complicates the relationship between the psychotherapist and the patient. In work and family crisis situations, and especially in latent conflicts in relationships with a psychotherapist, patients are easily vulnerable, but cannot verbally express their aggressiveness. They simply leave treatment and do not appear on time. This seemingly unmotivated interruption of treatment leads to the development of a feeling of guilt and its projection. It is important for the psychotherapist to countertransference that he is aware of his patient's oppositional tendencies and encourages him to talk, helping him cope with feelings of guilt or tension during treatment. A benevolent attitude, in which the therapist himself does not feel disadvantaged and does not make unnecessary reproaches, determines the possibility of continuing therapy.
For the relationship between the psychotherapist and the patient, it is important to notice in time that the patient tends to suppress his own critical needs and identify them only indirectly, for example, in the form of an unmotivated interruption of treatment.
Psychotherapy
The relationship between the psychotherapist and the patient is often characterized by a conflict of aggressiveness/dependence on the part of the patient.
Conditions for the treatment of hypertension are characterized by:
- low motivation, since complaints are received mainly about minor subjective symptoms;
— good possibilities of drug therapy;
— personal factors characterized by a conflict of aggressiveness/dependence, which can lead to tension in the relationship between the therapist and the patient and be expressed in unreliable interaction.
For supportive treatment, early involvement of the social field, a non-directive attitude of the psychotherapist towards the patient that does not activate the conflict of aggressiveness/dependence, active communication of information by the psychotherapist, strengthening of one’s own responsibility and independence, as well as self-perception (for example, through self-measurement of pressure) are recommended.
Psychotherapeutic treatment seems appropriate and indicated only when the patient has the appropriate level of suffering. Relaxation and behavioral techniques are well established as a means of supporting drug therapy, as they can significantly reduce drug doses.
As part of a behavioral therapy program, the patient's own responsibility should be achieved through the use of biofeedback and stress-relief techniques. Patients must understand what situations, difficulties, and conflicts lead to increased blood pressure, and learn to control their successes and failures. It is necessary to clarify whether these successes correspond to the canons of the classical reflex theory and whether we are talking about the direct formation of conditioned connections, and not just about teaching patients general sedative techniques.
Methods of solution-focused therapy, symbol drama, art therapy, creative visualization, transactional analysis, and family psychotherapy can be successfully used.
Litvinova Angelina Sergeevna
Litvinova Angelina Sergeevna is not the author of the text of this note.
Methods of alternative medicine and psychosomatics: blood pressure jumps? Relax!
When treating hypertension at home, you can also use relaxing techniques, such as massage. It is important to observe a work-rest regime, engage in physical exercise, and also follow a low-salt diet, eat more vegetables, berries, especially viburnum and hawthorn. There are also traditional medicine recipes that will help reduce blood pressure.
- aloe juice on an empty stomach every morning for 2 months. To take, dilute 3 drops of fresh juice in 1 teaspoon of boiled water at room temperature.
- calendula inflorescences (1 tablespoon) in a glass of boiling water. Leave for 15 minutes. Drink 0.25 cups 4 times a day.
- Use a pharmacy tincture of motherwort - 30 drops before each meal.
- Prepare an infusion of flax seeds . Place 2 tablespoons of seeds in a thermos, pour 2 cups of boiling water, leave overnight. Drink 100 ml 20 minutes before meals 3 times a day.
Thus, psychosomatics and traditional medicine treat high blood pressure differently, and the choice of the most effective method is yours!
