Can you die of a broken heart?

Well "broken heart" is a metaphor isn't it.
In victorian times they used to "go into a decline". But doctors then had to deal with so much TB and that is a weird illness - people can have a latent case, walled up in a corner of their lungs for years and then a shock to the system unbalances the immune system and they developed active disease.
I believe that everyday stress is over used as a reason for illness though. Spent a long time , a very long time, writing a chapter on this when I was writing the great work. Sometime stress (and mental attitude maybe) can improve the immune system. You know the one where you really can't afford to get ill?

Jess can people really continue long term with "can't afford to get ill"? I don't know the answer but I do know of many people who are so stressed at work that as soon as they take time off for a holiday get ill. If that is the case then the immune system's improvement would only be temporary. Of course this is not just "everyday stress" to which you refer, this is more extreme than that.

Yes quite movealot - I used to do that while i was teaching. stress level drops, immune system tries to recalibrate and bingo. flu or something.
There are many people though who live under high stress for years - e.g. caring for a difficult sick family member, and manage to stay well themselves.

Yes Jess those famous strong people. There is a very good little book called 'Depression the Curse of the Strong' by Dr Tim Cantopher. He is talking about clinical depression not the more common sort which most of us expereince at times. People who manage to cope with all the stuff others don't manage are very vulnerable.

I was once told when we were facing tough times "Its all right for you, you are strong" Easy to say and a good excuse not to cope!

At the Nursing Home I worked in, a few GPs put down as Primary cause
of death 'Old Age'.
These were Residents who were 95plus and we were all so happy to get
that cause- it was always a gentle death: ideal.