Your Heart Awareness

February is Heart Awareness Month, and our goal is to make sure we open the digital dialogue about the organ that sustains all the others and your precious life. The heart is more than just a pump. It has great intelligence. How you treat your heart will affect your life and your overall health.

A heart’s inner nature

Our organs, especially the heart is sensitive and reactive. Every thought and feeling and a deluge of emotions course through it constantly. While we will address the physical side of the heart, as to what creates disease states, realizing the subjective content of the heart has tremendous merit. We remind you to be— gentle, kind, patient, caring, considerate, respectful, peaceful, and compassionate— toward your self, life circumstances, and others. Exercises in thoughts, feelings, actions, and reactions also help build a healthy pump. These are the ingredients of one of the heart’s life-sustaining tonics.

Rarely is anything black and white, neat and tidy, or plain and simple, especially when it comes to Heart Disease. What is Heart Disease besides the leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States, killing about 610,000 people annually? The term Heart Disease is an umbrella for a range of conditions that affect the heart, such as Coronary Artery Disease (CAD), heart rhythm problems (arrhythmias), blood vessel diseases, heart valve and muscular disorders, and congenital heart defects (defects at birth).

Let’s take a look inside

The heart is a muscle that pumps blood to the entire body. In order to do its job, it has to be able to sufficiently pump blood to itself via the coronary arteries. When one or more coronary arteries narrow, it could cause decreased blood flow to the heart. Heart Disease caused by narrowing of arteries or a build up of fatty cholesterol plaques is called Coronary Artery Disease. When arterial walls stiffen and thicken, impeding blood flow to the heart and body, this is called Atherosclerotic Heart Disease. Heart disease affecting the arteries and vessels is the most common type, and what most often leads to a Heart Attack, striking about 735,000 Americans per year.

If arteries continue to narrow, it may make it difficult for adequate blood supply to reach the heart, especially during exercise. Greater output of energy requires an increased demand for the heart to pump blood. This kind of stress on the heart may cause it to ache. This is a warning sign! The greater the narrowing of arteries and vessels, the less activity it takes to provoke symptoms.

Classic Symptoms of Heart Disease

• Chest pain, pressure, tightness (angina) at rest or with exertion
• Pain that spreads or radiates to the shoulders, arm, and neck
• Pain in the neck, jaw, throat, upper abdomen, or back
• Shortness of breath
• Pain, numbness, weakness or coldness in legs or arms if you have narrowed vessels in these extremities
• Nausea
• Lightheadedness
• Cold sweats
• Extreme fatigue

If you have one or more of the symptoms above, it is crucial to see your doctor right away for evaluation.

Heart attack beware

Heart attack warning symptoms and Heart Disease symptoms are close in nature. The danger of ignoring your heart’s signals, is that you could suffer a heart attack. A heart attack is when one or more of the coronary arteries becomes completely blocked and blood supply to part of the heart is lost, causing a piece of the heart muscle to die. Please be aware that you might not be diagnosed with Heart Disease until you have had a heart attack, angina (chest pain), stroke, or heart failure. Listen to the heart’s signals. Not all heart attacks are created equal. They can range from a mild attack to death. Someone has a heart attack every 40 seconds in the United States, which means several have taken place as you’ve been reading these words.

Risk Factors for developing heart disease:

• Increased age
• Sex (Generally, men are at greater risk, but women’s risk increases after menopause.)
• Family history
• Smoking
• Poor diet (a diet high in fat, salt, sugar, and cholesterol)
• High blood pressure
• High cholesterol
• Diabetes
• Obesity
• Physical inactivity
• High stress
• Excess alcohol consumption

How to ward off Heart Disease:

• Quit smoking
• Have an annual health exam
• Control and monitor other health conditions like diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure
• Exercise 30 minutes a day 4-5 days per week
• Eat a balanced diet keeping it low in saturated fat, salt and added sugar
• Maintain a healthy weight (calculate your BMI – Body Mass Index)
• Reduce and manage stress
• Take your heart on a date and acknowledge its power to heal

Natural and simple

Taking care of the heart is simple. It’s natural. We are born knowing movement is good for us, eating foods that grow out of the ground and hang from trees is good for us, ingesting smoke is harmful, weighing too much is uncomfortable, stillness and nature feed us a different kind of nutrient, and laughter and hugs give the heart a different kind of workout. The heart is our fire. It stirs the life within us. It is our responsibility to take care of it.

Take the time to sit with your heart. Don’t ignore its plea to get your attention. Schedule an appointment with Doctors on Call to discuss any concerns or symptoms you may be experiencing, whether regularly or “just once in a while,” because either way is critical. The heart is more than just a pump. Know your heart is watching and wanting the very best for you!