10 Mental Habits That Promote Heart Disease And How To Change Them
Mental Habits That Contribute To Heart Disease
- Holding Grudges. Studies show that it increases your stress levels, which contribute to high blood pressure, heart problems, lowered immunity and inflammation.
- Lack of Self-compassion. A recent study found that people who practice self-compassion have lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
- Perfectionism. Research shows that perfection can be toxic and aiming for it contributes to mental health problems, psychological strain, burnout and risk of heart attacks.
- Impatience. Science shows that hurry and impatience alter heart functioning and promotes heart attacks.
- Overworking. Studies show that overworking on a regular basis causes heart disease, stress strokes and sometimes death.
- Pessimism. Pessimists die earlier than optimists and fail to climb the career ladder as far and fast than their optimistic cohorts.
- Hostility. People with seething anger or frequent thoughts that others can’t be trusted or angered that others are out to get them, have shorter telomeres—protective tips at the end of our chromosomes that determine our lifespan— and are more prone to cardiovascular disease, metabolic illness and death at earlier ages.
- Rumination. Rehashing worries over and over in your mind—as when you replay worry about a disagreement with your boss—can predict heart disease.
- Thought and Feeling Suppression. Research shows that the tendency to push away unwanted thoughts and feelings or avoid or suppress negative thoughts and feelings is linked to stress-induced cardiovascular reactivity.
- Anxiety. A large body of data links anxiety disorders with cardiac health, specifically heart disease. Anxiety increases the risk of developing heart disease and having a heart attack or stroke.
Use Your Mind To Beef Up Heart Health
Present-moment awareness determines how much stress you have and makes a difference in the health of your heart.
- Watch and regulate your anger and hostility, bringing presence of mind to them, much like you would observe a blemish on your hand.
- Notice if you’re attributing false motives or jumping to conclusions about the intentions of others. Start paying attention to how often you vilify people, over-personalize situations or make yourself a victim of circumstance.
- Practice forgiveness. Studies show that forgiveness versus holding grudges minimizes stress-related disorders and promotes heart health.
- Cultivate an optimistic outlook by focusing on the upside of a downside situation or the opportunity in the difficulty.
- Keep your focus in the present instead of ruminating about what has already happened (in the past) or about what might happen (in the future).
- Bear witness to negative or unpleasant thoughts—instead of avoiding or reacting to them—with mindfulness meditation, bringing your mind into the present moment.
- Curb your perfectionism.
- Meditate regularly. Even five or ten minutes of meditation a day can lower blood pressure, restore calm in your body and bring inner peace.
- Avoid overworking, slow down and practice work-life balance along with self-compassion and self-care on a regular basis.
Read the complete article available at Thrive Global!
Reflection:
Do you struggle with any of these bad habits? How are you planning to change them?
#HeartDisease #HeartHealth #MentalHealth
@comfortableNight4463
Very wonderful and informative post! Thank you for sharing this with our community.
I (as well as others I'm sure) certainly struggle with a few of these~ I will surely take time to look over this list again, and re-evaluate things and reflect on how to do better going forwards!
@PoliteOcean Thank you for reading!
@comfortableNight4463
This describes me perfectly. Looks like I will get to the finish line early.
@Gettingbettertoday You won't. It's never too late to start changing for the better. You got this!
@comfortableNight4463
Please be careful!
It's great that you're sharing helpful information but...
Outright copying of very large amounts of copyrighted material, as was done above, clearly infringes on the author's legal rights.
There seems to be a growing trend on 7Cups where people find helpful content and then outright copy very large parts of it and post it here.
Even though a link is provided above to the original source, that doesn't give legal permission to outright copy large parts of the material and post it here.
See the bottom of the source webpage for the copyright mark.
See the term of service on the source website that says:
- "Unless otherwise expressly authorized herein or in the Services, you agree not to display, distribute, license, perform, publish, reproduce, duplicate, copy, create derivative works from, modify, sell, resell, exploit, transfer or upload for any commercial purposes, any portion of the Services, use of the Services, or access to the Services."
As they point out, copying and duplicating and reproducing and publishing are a violation unless expressly authorized.
One can legally copy very small amounts under fair use for just certain situations as explained here:
https://www.findlaw.com/smallbusiness/business-operations/is-it-ok-to-copy-material-from-a-website.html#:~:text=At%20first%20glance%2C%20it%20may,digital%2C%20%22offline%22%20content.
It would be helpful if 7Cups provided guidance on reproducing material from copyrighted sources.
The 7Cups Posting Guidelines button at the bottom right of the thread post box doesn't mention posting copyrighted material or fair use.
Perhaps a message should be put at the top of the thread posting box to not post copyrighted material without permission if fair use conditions are not being met.
