HealthTree Blog

Your happiness can affect your risk for heart disease according to a new study lead by Dr. Karina Davidson. People, who were optimistic or generally happy, were less likely to suffer from heart disease. While this is just a preliminary study, it can have great implications for people at risk for heart problems.

Increasing Happiness and Reducing Stress for Heart Health

With happiness, comes a reduction in stress. Some people are better able to handle stress than others are. This effectiveness in coping with stress can have much more to do with not only happiness but the physiological responses people have to stress. When someone becomes stressed, many bodily functions are affected. A stressed person’s heart rate and blood pressure increases. Without proper de-escalation of the stress, a person can experience chronic stress, which can have detrimental effects on his/her health.

So with this, you have to wonder if it’s really the happiness that makes a person lower their risk for heart disease or if it’s the elimination of stress. Because after all, if you lose your job, get divorced, lose a loved one to death, you’re not going to be happy. However, if you are able to either avoid stress or use relaxation techniques to reduce it, you will feel much more at ease and thus happier.

Photo Coutesy of: Robert Snache – Spirithands.net’