Abstract. Background Emotions and coronary heart disease. Coronary heart disease is a significant public health issue, due to its high prevalence and mortality rate (1). A number of clinical and experimental studies indicate that strong emotions, especially negative emotions, such as hostility, anger, depression and anxiety, precipitate coronary heart disease (2, 3). On the one hand, coronary heart disease patients have difficulty in coping with stress and depression and experience negative emotions, like anger or frustration. On the other hand, positive emotions, especially hope, contribute to health benefits and lead to lower levels of coronary heart disease and other diseases (4-7).Stress is one of the most predisposing factors of people with coronary heart disease. Between 20% and 40% of all middle-aged women and men report stress-related symptoms in population studies (8). The relation between anxiety and coronary heart disease has been the subject of several studies, most of which indicate that stressful events are associated with coronary heart disease. Sudden and profound emotional stress, namely, death of relatives, domestic abuse, severe arguments, medical diagnoses, devastating financial loss, can trigger acute heart failure in individuals who are free from cardiac disease (9). Social relationships, size and 859 This article is freely accessible online.