ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with some effects of environmental stress on the emotions that relate to cardiovascular function and diseases and which underlie the burgeoning field of behavioral medicine. It discusses the emotions such as anxiety and anger can affect cardiovascular function and are related to complications of cardiovascular diseases. Although dietary restriction is useful in antihypertensive therapy in salt-sensitive subjects, a wide misunderstanding ignores the fundamental role of the sodium in normal body economy and cardiovascular function and in homeostasis. Hostility and anger dimensions may be causally related to cardiovascular diseases. Many emotions induce cardiovascular responses and it is primarily perceptions that determine the emotional responses and psychophysiological consequences. Although useful for psychometric questionnaires, it is highly improbable that highly intercorrelated emotional and behavioral aspects of a human being can ever satisfactorily be subdivided into the component parts such as “hostility”.
