November 5, 2007

Emotion and Health – Heart Freedom (Part 3 of 8 )

"Emotion and Health – Heart Freedom"

Part 3 of 8

Healthy Emotions for Healthy Lives

A direct connection between your heart (emotion and feeling) and the rest of your body affects your state of health. Neurobiologist Candace Pert and a team of researchers with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have identified “molecules of emotion.” Combinations of tiny bits of protein on the surface of cells form receptors, sensors that collect chemical information carried throughout your body by other molecules called ligands. Receptors and ligands are very particular about the company they keep; to bind together they must be perfectly matched. Some ligands are natural to the body, such as peptides, neurotransmitters, and hormones; some are natural but foreign to the body, such as viruses; and others are artificial chemicals. When a ligand binds with a receptor (in what Pert calls “sex on a molecular level”)i information is deposited onto and into the receptor in a biochemical exchange that has profound effects. If a receptor waiting for a natural body ligand is unoccupied, because emotional repression has reduced the supply of peptides, for instance, a matching virus can dock and illness results.

According to Dr. Pert:

All emotions are healthy… Anger, fear, and sadness, the so-called negative emotions, are as healthy as peace, courage, and joy. To repress these emotions and not let them flow freely is to set up a dis-integrity in the system, causing it to act at cross-purposes rather than as a unified whole. The stress this creates, which takes the form of blockages and insufficient flow of peptide signals to maintain function at the cellular level, is what sets up the weakened conditions that can lead to disease.

In the 1940s, Wilhelm Reich was ridiculed for his assertion that failure to express sexual emotions caused cancer, but the receptor-ligand biochemical model lends credence to his theories. Although Reich did not know it, modern medical science recognizes that people have miniscule cancerous tumors developing within their bodies all the time. Pert and her fellow researchers found that endorphins in the blood increased by 200 percent during sex.ii It seems quite possible that when a person is sexually fulfilled, most of the receptors for cancer are occupied with endorphin ligands so the disease can’t develop further. The converse might also be true: if sexual emotions are repressed, endorphin ligands are absent and cancerous ligands can take their place.

Viruses and cancer aren’t the only sicknesses that thrive on repressed emotion. Heart disease—now so pervasive that by the late 1960s the World Health Organization called it “the world's most serious epidemic”—loves emotional blocks. Of course, lifestyle choices (diet, exercise, smoking, and other physical stressors) are powerful contributors, but they are not the only culprits. Part of the problem stems from armoring our hearts against feeling too much, not allowing them to open fully to others. In his empowering book, Love and Survival: The Scientific Basis for the Healing Power of Intimacy, Dr. Dean Ornish documents studies that conclude intimacy (emotional support and connection) is at least as important as physical factors (cholesterol levels, blood pressure, etc.) for the prevention of and recovery from heart disease.

Excerpted from our new book Sensual Love Secrets for Couples: The Four Freedoms of Body, Mind, Heart and Soul, by Al Link and Pala Copeland, Llewellyn, 2007

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