Healing Hypertension
If you are one of the millions of people diagnosed with high blood pressure, this groundbreaking book can change your life. Unique in combining a medical and a psychological approach, Samuel J. Mann, M.D., explains:
- How you can tell whether or not your high blood pressure is related to emotions
- How to find the medication best suited for you, and when to reduce or eliminate unnecessary medication
- How exploring “hidden” or repressed emotions can reduce your blood pressure and the need for medication
Featuring compelling and instructive case histories as well as the latest medical research, Healing Hypertension can help you make sense of your high blood pressure while offering new choices for controlling it.
Healing Hypertension: A Pioneering Approach
Overview
From Publisher’s Weekly
Most studies on hypertension focus on the cause-effect relationship between type-A personalities, those under extreme stress on a regular basis, and their resulting high blood pressure. However, this book takes a look at the connection between individuals who repress stress and emotions and their unexplained high blood pressure. Mann argues that these individuals, the ones with “hidden emotions,” suffer the long-term effects of high blood pressure because the underlying causes of their condition aren’t readily identifiable and, therefore, not addressed. The author offers ways people can find help and lists various medical treatment options.
Through statistics and case studies, Mann presents his theory that only by researching a patient’s past and finding the unacknowledged source of that patient’s stress can the causes of hypertension be addressed and dealt with accurately and effectively. This accessible guide will be especially helpful for people looking to identify the underlying factors that they can control rather than relying on medication.
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Excerpt from the Introduction
I have had the unique opportunity of evaluating and treating thousands of people with hypertension – high blood pressure – at the Hypertension Center of the New York Hospital – Cornell Medical Center. Based on this experience, I have acquired an understanding that I believe can help you finally make sense of your hypertension.
The mystery of why people develop hypertension has always intrigued me. It has been of even greater concern to my patients, who regularly ask me the same question: “Why do I have hypertension?” It is amazing that after decades of research over 95% of people with hypertension are still labeled as having essential hypertension, meaning the cause is unknown.
I don’t accept this conclusion. I believe it is possible to make sense of hypertension most of the time and to pursue the most appropriate and effective individual treatment depending on the cause. Healing Hypertension is dedicated to this belief.
I also became familiar with the many studies focused on the mind-body connection of hypertension. At first I did not have any particular interest in this area. If anything, like many of my colleagues, I scoffed at researchers who focused on the interaction between emotional stress and high blood pressure. I was also oblivious to the effects on our health of what I will call “hidden” emotions. My overall view was that mind-body research was pretty much a waste of time.
In my work with patients, I began to notice a pattern that contradicted the usual view of the link between stress and hypertension. Even patients with severe hypertension did not seem more emotionally distressed than others.
When I began to find a link between hypertension and hidden emotions, I assumed at first that this link was present only in the rare person. As time went on, I began to observe it in a much larger proportion of my patients.
I want to emphasize strongly that hypertension can be caused by a number of factors, alone or in combination. In many people, hypertension is driven mainly by hidden emotions. In many others, it is not, and such factors as genetics, obesity, and salt consumption are more important.
I want to give it a 6 out of 5. This book may have saved my wife's life. Doctors, even specialists, seem not to know much about hypertension and high blood pressure. There is a place for drugs, usually multiple drugs in combination, where serious heart damage has already happened. But each drug, especially in combination are dangerous. This book gives you the baseline to use before you accept prescriptions. Most illuminating though is that 95% of hypertension is emotional, psychological, and/or past incident driven. He addresses treatment starting from lifestyle, then mind/emotion generated and then drugs. He points out that specific diagnosis is of emotional causes is difficult from the outside (the doctor, for instance) and equally so for the patient. The up side is that the treatment of emotional/psychological sources are non-invasive, non-life threatening and relatively cheap - with no side effects. His information about "mechanisms" that are causes is worth the whole book.
This book is worth every penny. I found it straightforward, concise, very well organized and easy to understand.
Dr. Mann treats the patient not the disease. I am encouraged and impressed by Dr. Mann's desire to work toward finding the cause of hypertension.. I was surprised by the introduction of a potential cause for some individuals but not all. This book provides a hopeful and surprising outcome for individuals, experiencing hypertension, who may be unaware of the impact of past events in their own lives. Dr. Mann provides an avenue to explore. Though the course of exploration may require a considerable amount of personal hard work for the patient, the pay off is worth the effort. It is like exercise. If we choose not to do the hard work of exercise we suffer the consequences. Maintaining our optimum health, to the best of our ability, requires vigilance and a fair amount of personal effort. Exploring all that this book suggests is a potential ground breaker in the treatment of hypertension.
Great information about hypertension cause and effects and treatment available. Well written. The case studies were fascinating.
Beyond Mainstream Medical Thinking
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