Love is in the air. Mardi Gras fills the first half of the shortest month of the year with purple, green and gold joy. Following that is the pink, red, and purple of Valentine’s Day. On that same day, we also welcome the black and gray of Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent.
This seems an ideal time to remind you why your heart is so important and offer up some guidance for loving it more mindfully. We do not want to “cease to live,” just as we never want to “cease to love,” as the Mardi Gras anthem goes…so let’s talk about all the ways you can help live your longest and best life.
What is the heart and why is it important?
Your heart is the engine of the body, pumping oxygen and blood to your body and delivering “waste” (carbon dioxide) to your lungs for removal. Blood contains nutrients that your organs need to function. A healthy heart means a healthy body.
THE BASICS OF HEART HEALTH
“Your heart deserves to be loved for all the work it does. It started pumping blood before you were born and will continue pumping throughout your whole life.” –kidshealth.org
There are countless lists of dos and don’ts related to keeping your heart happy and healthy. They can seem repetitive at best and overwhelming at worst. But one is always mentioned: Do not smoke.
According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute: “Smoking is bad for your heart because it damages your heart and blood vessels. The chemicals you inhale when you smoke increase your heart rate and blood pressure and reduce the oxygen delivery to your tissues. Smoking also increases the risk of plaque buildup in the arteries, which can lead to heart attack or stroke. Smoking has no safe level, and even occasional smoking can harm your heart.”
The American Heart Association recommends these eight lifestyle behaviors for optimal heart health:
1. Following a healthy sleep schedule.
2. Not smoking. (Worth repeating!)
3. Getting regular physical activity.
4. Adhering to a healthy diet.
5. Maintaining a healthy body weight.
6. Maintaining healthy blood glucose levels.
7. Maintaining healthy cholesterol levels.
8. Maintaining healthy blood pressure.
Many of the above can be summed up in the mantra of Eric “Doc” Griggs, the founder and executive director of the Doc Griggs Foundation, a New Orleans-based, community-driven, student-activated, and professionally mentored organization that promotes community health by empowering the community to “Get checked. Get fit. Get moving!®”
Getting Checked: Getting your blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and glucose levels regularly checked is key. These can show risk factors and make you aware of lifestyle changes that need to be made.
Getting Fit: According to Doc Griggs, “We truly are what we eat!” He recommends “eating more real foods…shop the perimeter of the grocery store. Eat foods that will spoil in the sunshine!”
We are also what we drink: “The one thing you should be most concerned about putting in your body every day is water since 70% of your body is water.”
According to Griggs, “Salt is the second biggest enemy next to smoking. As salt enters your body it’s like water entering a closed pipe. The higher the salt, the higher the pressure, and eventually…you will pop the pipe, i.e. have a stroke. When your blood pressure goes down, the pressure on your arteries goes down.”
Get Moving: Griggs says that the recommendation from the CDC is a minimum of 150 minutes a week of exercise. “The more cardiovascular exercise, the less energy your heart takes to beat, and the stronger this muscle becomes,” he explains.
“Your heart is one size. If you have more body to pump blood to, the harder your heart must work. This is the ‘why’ for losing weight.
However, he notes, “You can’t out-exercise a bad diet.” Your heart health begins first with what you take in rather than what energy you put out.
EXERCISE YOUR POSITIVITY, TOO
One of the “10 small steps for better heart health” that Harvard Medical School recommends (https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/10-small-steps-for-better-heart-health) is to count your blessings. “Taking a moment each day to acknowledge the blessings in your life is one way to start tapping into other positive emotions. These have been linked with better health, longer life, and greater well-being, just as their opposites — chronic anger, worry, and hostility — contribute to high blood pressure and heart disease.”
A 2020 article in Psychology Today titled “The Heart’s Electromagnetic Field is Your Superpower: Training Heart-Brain Coherence” references The Heartmath Institute, which has been researching heart intelligence since 1991. Says Heartmath Research Director Dr. Rollin McCraty, “Coherence is the state when the heart, mind, and emotions are in energetic alignment and cooperation.”
According to the article, “Positive emotions such as compassion and love generate a harmonious pattern in the heart’s rhythm, leading to coherence and greater emotional regulation. With an electrical component about 60 times greater and an electromagnetic energy field 5,000 times greater than the brain’s, the heart has a significant influence on the body down to the cellular level. The brain’s rhythms along with the respiratory and blood pressure rhythms entrain with the heart’s rhythm. This is the optimal state for human functioning.
In the same way we build mental habits, we can develop new heart habits. Whatever the heart informs the brain, the brain responds accordingly.”
FLOSS MORE—AND GET MORE MASSAGES!
Wishing you flossed more regularly and got regular massages? The good news is that both are good for your heart, so maybe you can reward improving your gum tissue with more deep-tissue massages?
“Dental health is a good indication of overall health, including your heart, because those who have periodontal disease often have the same risk factors for heart disease. Studies have shown that bacteria in the mouth involved in the development of gum disease can move into the bloodstream and cause an elevation in C-reactive protein, a marker for inflammation in the blood vessels. These changes may in turn increase your risk of heart disease and stroke.” — ClevelandClinic.org.
According to the American Massage Therapy Association (AMTA), individuals can reduce their risk of heart disease with massage. A much-referenced 2013 study published in the International Journal of Preventive Medicine, found massage therapy was effective at helping control blood pressure in women with pre-hypertension. Researchers concluded that pre-hypertensive women experienced lowered blood pressure for up to 72 hours after receiving a moderate-pressure massage.
How does massage therapy lower an individual’s blood pressure and protect against heart disease? By naturally releasing oxytocin and serotonin which lowers stress levels. Since high stress is a key contributor to many cardiovascular disease predictors, you can consider your next massage as more than a treat…it’s preventative medicine!
BUT, IT’S ABOUT WHAT YOU EAT AND DRINK THAT MAY AFFECT YOUR HEART HEALTH THE MOST
“Laissez les bons temps rouler” may be good for the soul, but it’s not always good for the heart. Heart disease may be the leading killer in the U.S. for both men and women, but statistically New Orleans also has the second highest rate of stomach cancer in the nation. Why?
Because we love our salty foods (especially our fried, smoked, and pickled foods).
Salt not only increases stomach cancer risk, but it increases your blood pressure, even if you are taking blood pressure medication, according to local registered dietitian Kimberly Hemenway M.S., R.D., L.D.N.
“We are not designed to eat lots of salt or fat”, she notes, adding, “Fat causes heart blockage, and even too much ‘good fat’ is a bad thing.” She also emphasizes that reading food labels is critical. “I always say, the numbers tell the story, not the words…food manufacturers have gotten very clever about what words they put on packages, but you need to read the numbers.”
Here are some good number guideposts:
• “High Fiber” means 3 grams or more of fiber per serving.
• “Low Salt” means 140 milligrams per serving.
• “Low Fat” is 3 grams per serving.
Hemenway has been a dietician for 35 years and she has seen diet trends come and go. But two current widely accepted plans are both aligned with and supported by The American Heart Association: The DASH Eating Plan and the Mediterranean Diet.
DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) is a flexible and balanced eating plan that requires no special foods and instead provides daily and weekly nutritional goals. This plan recommends:
• Eating vegetables, fruits, and whole grains.
• Including fat-free or low-fat dairy products, fish, poultry, beans, nuts, and vegetable oils.
• Limiting foods that are high in saturated fat, such as fatty meats, full-fat dairy products, and tropical oils such as coconut, palm kernel, and palm oils.
• Limiting sugar-sweetened beverages and sweets.
According to the American Heart Association, a Mediterranean-style diet typically includes:
• Plenty of fruits, vegetables, bread and other grains, potatoes, beans, nuts and seeds.
• Olive oil as a primary fat source.
• Dairy products, eggs, fish, and poultry in low to moderate amounts.
Think you can’t live without that salty taste or sweetness? According to Hemenway, you must give yourself 2-3 weeks for your taste buds to acclimate. Given that Lent is twice that long, this may be the perfect time to start trying out less salt, less sugar, and less fat.
You’ve been enjoying the positivity of Mardi Gras, so keep it going. Throw your heart some love!
