Now research directed by James Blumenthal at Duke University seems to suggest that the tendency to experienced heightened negative emotionsof any typeare what puts people at risk for increased cardiovascular diseased. These emotions can include: fear, frustration, anxiety, and disappointment. Perhaps when people talk about dying of a broken heart, they are really saying that intense emotional reactions to loss and disappointment can cause a fatal heart attack. 

Blumenthal is attempting to demonstrate that teaching people (He calls them "high responders.") how to tone down their emotional responses can prevent heart attacks. He suggests that if people habitually elevate their blood pressure and produce excessive hormones to social events, it's only a matter of time before chronic health problems exist, including worn and clogged arteries. 

Positive emotions can cause a jump in blood pressure, but Blumenthal is convinced that it is mostly negative emotions that cause most of the damage. In one of his recent studies, he found that high responders require cardiovascular surgery more frequently and are two to three times more likely to suffer from heart attacks. AND, these people are not necessarily the classic Type A's, he says. 

Blumenthal uses cognitive therapy techniques to get his research groups acknowledge and recognize what is happening to them when they overrespond. By using a variety of strategies, he gets them to be more aware of when they over respond. Then he gives his groups small techniques to practice on a regular basis, including taking time to smell the roses. This is not so different from what we teach in TMI's Stress Manager program. 

Actually, if any of our readers have looked closely at the Ray Rosenman and Meyer Friedman research about Type A's, you will see that Blumenthal's approach is not so different from what Rosenman and Friedman recommended. The big difference is that Rosenman and Friedman also worked on eating habits, exercise, and smoking. Blumenthal is concentrating solely on counseling techniques alone, and finding positive results. And he is realistic enough to acknowledge that what he is doing is teaching people appropriate "common sense" reactions to every day events. 

If you are interested in pursuing this topic further, we recommend reading Albert Ellis, the classic cognitive realist. He has dozens of books out, and anyone of them is appropriate to begin. Ellis is still among the living and occasionally speaks at various venues throughout the United States. He is shocking, with his very salty language, but he makes the point: why should any of us think that the world should be perfect for us. If you start with this assumption, that things are certainly going to go wrong, then you don't get so outraged when it doesn't happen that way. In other words, don't live in a "Zero Defects" world. It doesn't exist, and you'll be better off emotionally and physically by acknowledging things don't always go right.

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