Our hearts crave health. When we move, we feel better. When we make food choices that nourish us, we feel energetic. When we do things that make us laugh, or spend time with the ones we love, we flourish.
As I have traveled the world, offering my own vision of heart-centered living, I have had the honor of meeting extraordinary individuals who walk this path with me. It is always enlightening to learn about the many unique ways of perceiving and working with the heart.
Most physicians know that diet and exercise matter, we learn that even in medical school. But this concerned me -- that there are still doctors out there who don't believe in a healthy lifestyle pattern, and want their patients to depend heavily on drugs to be "healthy."
According to solid research, historically African American women are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of race-related stress, given their socially constructed identities as African Americans and as women.
February is heart month -- a great time to think about heart health. While we tend to think of heart disease as a problem of adults, it can start in childhood, and the health habits of childhood have everything to do with heart health in adulthood.
I think the Mediterranean diet would be worth adopting for the sheer pleasure of it, and the health benefits are just another great reason to go Mediterranean.
Can't touch your toes anymore? Not to worry. Practice this short cycle of postures three times per week to improve the results of the sit-and-reach test.
The fact of a heart attack became a reality when I was told by the emergency room on-call cardiologist that I couldn't wait for family to arrive to the hospital for support. "There's no time to lose." He needed to perform a heart catheterization procedure immediately.
Three months after recovering from my heart surgery, I ran my first 5k. My goal was to run the entire race and finish, and that I did.
My life is not "go, go, go" all the time like it was before. I rest more, eat better and take some time for myself. I think we all get used to doing too much and learn to ignore minor ailments or fatigue because that is what women are programmed to do.
After a visit to the emergency room, followed by an appointment with a cardiologist, my life would soon take an unexpected turn. I was diagnosed with a rare congenital heart defect that was causing my heart valve to leak severely and enlarged my heart twice the normal size.
Those who want today's news to be that the Mediterranean diet has been proven superior to other truly good diets will need to wait until tomorrow, or longer. We had previously lacked any good head-to-head comparisons of "best diet" candidates, and we still do.
An article just published in the New England Journal of Medicine claims that a Mediterranean diet is much more effective than a "low-fat diet" in preventing cardiovascular disease. A careful reading of the study reveals that this is simply not true.
Mom's doctor recommended fish oil pills, bringing her blood pressure numbers down 100 points. Its refreshing to hear even my grandma being more conscious of what she eats. This is the same young lady who scoffed at me when I got to Thanksgiving dinner talking about being a vegetarian!
My mind circled back to online articles I had read in the past few years about danger signals for women and heart attacks. It now occurred to me that I was experiencing some of them now.
It is a marvel of synchronicity that a TV project caused us to reconnect at this crucial time in his life. And not only that, but I now had the medical skills and decades of experience to clearly recognize his potentially-fatal condition as it unfolded before my eyes, thanks to Skype.
