As an athlete, I have to control my emotions like for example anger, unfair calls that referee makes or irritation that comes from my opponent. On class about myths, rituals and mysticism I learned that term used to explain suppressing all these emotion is called “swallowing frogs”, used by Northeast Brazilian women. They also complain about folk illnesses, like “nerves”, evil-eye sickness”, shock sickness (susto), open chest (peito aberto) or blood-boiling bruises. All these symptoms show the difficulties of suppressing emotions and convincing themselves that they need to maintain accepted emotional state. If this state is not maintained, they will cause social and physical harm to their society. They consider this anger, anxiety and envy as sickness, and they are very common in Northeast Brazil, because of the gossip and arguments that rage in this country. …show more content…
That is why they are diagnosed by the folk Catholic faith healers - razadeiras (female) or rezadores (male). To fulfill their treatments, they use prayers, rituals, advice or herbs. They are common in crowding and poor cities, where they use prayers mixed with rhymes. There are few different kinds of healers. There are ones for infants, called “fallen fontanelle”, or for adults, such as “peito aberto”, and they can differ in symptoms even if they have same syndrome. Illness called “nerves” is common, not only in Northeast Brazil, but also in America and Europe. These nerves are considered little strings that connect muscles and tension, and can be worn out by too much worrying, tension or accumulation of stress. Person diagnosed with this disease frequently experiences headaches, dizziness, bellyaches, fatigue and the most important sign is the inability to control stressful emotions. Both women and men can have this illness, but they have different