"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched.
They must be felt with the heart." -Helen Keller
Do you know how many times your heart would beat if you lived until you were eighty years old? Over three million times! Each beat of your heart is affected by your nutritional health and emotional environment. Your amazing heart reflects everything that you feel in life, and it monitors everything in your body.
Anxiety,anger, depression, personality factors and character traits, social isolation and chronic life stress are factors affecting coronary heart disease. Recent data suggests that acute stress can trigger heart attacks or produce irregular heart rhythms, stimulate platelet function (causing clots leading to strokes), and increase blood viscosity (thickening of the blood which impedes circulation and starves cells of oxygen). In coronary artery diseased patients, acute stress also causes coronary vasoconstriction (contraction of the arteries of the heart), which can trigger a heart attack. Even those people with normal blood pressure that have in increased anger index, are three times more likely to have a heart attack.
This being so; how can you create an emotional climate within yourself not only to protect but to enhance your heart emotionally and spiritually; possibly, by accepting people for who they are without making judgments or finding fault, or taking offense. Having an open heart means acting out of kindness, compassion and understanding rather than seeing yourself as separate and unconnected. This can make a difference in other people's lives as well as your own. What comes from the heart, goes to the heart.
"A light heart lives long."-William Shakespeare
Medically, doctors have been using the measuring and the control of cholesterol, as a means of predicting and treating heart disease. Mind you, these are the same doctors who until recently were recommending trans fat laden margarine as a substitute for butter. Experts blame trans fats for at least 30,000 premature deaths a year. Several decades of research show consumption of trans fatty acids promotes heart disease, cancer, diabetes, immune dysfunction, and obesity and reproductive problems. Research is showing that Doctors would get a much better sense of a patient's risk for heart disease by also testing for C-reactive protein, which is an indicator of inflammation in the body since there are people with normal cholesterols having coronary heart disease.
The statin drugs prescribed by doctors for cholesterol control: Lipitor , Zocor , Mevacor ,Pravachol inhibit the bodies production of COQ10. Side effects of Co-Q10 deficiency include muscle wasting leading to muscle weakness, loss of balance, and severe back pain, heart failure (the heart is a muscle!), neuropathy and inflammation of the tendons and ligaments, often leading to rupture. I would recommend you reading this expose on cholesterol drugs here
Intelligent reseachers have concluded that cholesterol is not so much a problem but a symptom of nutritional and lifestyle mismanagement. Simply quitting smoking can raise the HDL (good cholesterol) 15-20%. Regular aerobic exercise and losing weight will both raise HDL levels. Antioxidants, such as Vitamin C & E, Grapeseed Extract, CoQ10, Reservatrol, Omega-3 fish oils, L-Carnitine, Flush Free Niacin, Tumeric (Cucumerin), Garlic, Green Tea and Red Yeast Rice will control cholesterol levels and prevent LDL (bad cholesterol) from oxidizing to a reactive form that attacks the walls of the arteries. A Mediteranean-like diet, rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fish, nuts, and olive oil and caution against foods rich in saturated fats (beef, butter, whole milk dairy products) and processed fast foods with hydrogenated oils. Soluble Fiber found in legumes, oatmeal, fruits, and vegetables are highly effective for maintaining healthy cholesterol levels as well as providing your body with Magnesium- the mineral that stabilizes your heart beat and prevents Arrhythmia.
You have three million chances in life to make a difference, in your health and the lives of others. Every beat of your heart is a new day.