Stress is a common problem in today’s modern world.  Almost everyone has been caught in the tenacious grip of life’s stress.  Many people think of stress as just something that happens, not something to be too concerned about.

Yet, for others stress can seem overwhelming. Now, when I talk about stress, I don’t just mean the little inconveniences of life. Overwhelming stress is the kind of stress that really makes us feel like we’re in a pressure cooker. It could be fear, depression, panic attacks, grief, the loss of or someone we are close to emotionally. Stress can also be from an illness or the stress we feel from taking care of someone who is severely ill.

Stress can be mild or it can be so overwhelming so overpowering that can make us doubt if we really want to go on with life.  This is what author Thomas Moore writes about in his book, Dark Nights of the Soul, when he says, “At one time or another, most people go through a period of sadness, loss, frustration, or failure that is so disturbing and long-lasting that it can be called a Dark Night of the Soul.

A Dark Night of the Soul is the profound stress I am talking about.

Is this where you are in your life?  Has your stress become so pervasive, so debilitating that it’s reached a point where you begin to wonder about the very fabric of life?  Have you reached your dark night of the soul?

If you’ve reached this point then I want to give you one thing today, one idea, one image… that might be able to help you make it through this difficulty.  What I want to give you what I call the image of the light at the end of the tunnel.  Now we’ve all heard of this idea.  It’s the idea of hope, of a way out from life’s difficulties.  But have you ever felt it?  Knew that such hope was not just possible, but a reality?

I know I have.  Let me relate to you a story from my childhood.

When I was about 14, my friends and I decided to go exploring a cave near Knoxville Tennessee where I grew up. Not far from my home, a cave existed that was supposed to take you over a half mile underground from one part of an abandoned area to another.

Now one of the guys had been in the cave before and thought he knew how to get to the other side. At least he said he did.  We’d soon find out that he didn’t really know the way through but his brother did. Of course his brother wasn’t with us.

So about ten in the morning we set off.  At first it was fun, crawling like explorers in the darkness, sliding over the wet rocks.  More than once we headed off in a wrong direction and soon found ourselves boxed in with no way to go further.  And we were forced to retrace our steps. After about an hour and a half in the cold darkness of the cave and not being sure where we were going, we all began having some doubts as to what we were doing.  Paul the boy who “knew the way through the cave,” had finally confessed that he didn’t really know where he was going.

So after falling into a three foot deep pool of water getting totally wet from the waist down and having one of our flashlights go bad-we all started feeling uncomfortable.  Now, I’ve never been that much of a risk taker, and I at least really began having second doubts about this whole exploration trip. At one point the cave narrowed to a shallow point that was only 10-12 inches high.   And then I began to get really scared.  My mind began imagining wild things.  I have visions of getting stuck and becoming trapped.  Yet, because the cave was extremely narrow and I was in the middle, I couldn’t do anything but keep crawling.

And then my flashlight went out.  And now the fear really began coming up into my throat. It was all I could do to keep from crying.  And it seemed like there was no end to the cave, I kept moving ahead beginning to lose hope.  And finally a shout came from Paul who was up in front.

“I see a light.  I see a light.”  Hearing his elated shout.  And I craned my head up, twisting- and suddenly I saw it too- a small spot of light.  It was a light at the end of the tunnel.   The feeling of joy was overwhelming.  A light, a light meant that we were going to make it out. We were going to overcome what had become a nightmare.

And I’ll never forget crawling out of that cave, into a field full of cows.  I remember the smell of the grass, and the beauty of the sunlight.  It was overwhelming.  And I remember thanking God and feeling so grateful that we have made it to safety.   And what this experience at fourteen taught me, I keep to this day.  And that is you cannot underestimate the power of knowing that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

So if you’re suffering from overwhelming stress, debilitating stress- if you reached your dark night of the soul don’t become dismayed.  Don’t give up hope. You can indeed overcome your stress.

Find a doctor. Find a therapist. Find a method that you believe in that will help you reduce or illuminate your stress.  As a doctor who’s worked with hundreds of people with severe overwhelming psychological issues I know that you can succeed.

Don’t let stress be a dark night of the soul that keeps you feeling hopeless.  Don’t let it ruin your life. Trust and have faith.  You can indeed make it.  There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Remember some key important questions you need to ask yourself.

Will you seek?

Will you knock?

Will you open the door to your own heart?

Because if you seek a solution, and if you keep knocking, knocking and struggling, you can find a way out.  If you open the door to your own heart- your dark night can be overcome.  Your stress can be managed, reduced, or even eliminated.

If you’d like to see this topic in video format go to:

How long will you wait to start reducing the stress in your life?

If you’re someone who’s suffering from feelings of severe overwhelm- perhaps your work environment is just too demanding? You may have anxiety about the economic future that lies ahead?  Or you could feel overstressed because of the demands of home and family?   Just how long are you going to wait to get started on managing and reducing your stress?

As a cardiologist with over 20 years of experience in dealing with people who have actual heart disease, as well is having training working with people emotionally and psychologically–I know the consequences of ignoring stress.

Did you know that you could have an actual heart attack if you ignore the stress in your life?  Or did you know that stress could lower your immune function and lead to an illness?  Did you know stress has been shown to increase chronic pain? It can!

Stress can do all of these things.   Many people think of stress is just something that happens to them, a fact of life, or something they should just ignore. But the truth is that stress can be harmful and produce serious consequences on our bodily health. It can also be debilitating psychologically.

So if you’re someone who feels overwhelmed, or overburdened by stress–what are you waiting for? How long will you wait to start reducing the stress in your life?

Most people are well aware that stress is hindering how they live. And quite often they have tried to change or reduce their stress but haven’t succeeded.  But for some reason they just haven’t been motivated were succeeded in changing their stress.  And the question is why?

Did you know that just 2 things in life motivate almost all people- pain and pleasure?

In fact this is what motivates pretty much everything we do in life.  Lets face it, how many people would get up in the morning drag themselves out of a warm bed on a freezing cold morning and drive into work- if they did need a paycheck?   So what makes them do this?  Pain and pleasure.   In this case the pain of getting out of bed, even though it’s cold, is not as bad as the pain of not having a paycheck.

And what about people who were severely overweight? What causes them to keep eating even though they know that they are damaging their health?  Once again, it’s the twin motivators of pain and pleasure.  For most people the comfort they feel in eating in the moment overrides the pain they feel about perhaps getting diabetes or heart disease down the road.   Because the damaging effects of illness are often not felt right away, it’s easy to give in to the comfort of food.

So let me teach you 3 simple steps for working to reduce the stress in your life.

First, you have to Identify Your Stressors that are making your life unmanageable.

Identify Your Stressors- Before you can begin the process of changing your stress level.  You need to be clear about what is stressing you out.  Now for most people this is relatively easy, they know that “deadlines at work” drive them up a tree.   Or they know that financial uncertainty stresses them out.But for other people, they really don’t know.  They don’t really sit down and take the time to examine their life in detail. They go through life just floating.  They might know that they have back pain, neck pain, or even migraines–but they don’t put 2 and 2 together to realize that this is really stress.

Or some people know that they just get “stressed out” by life but don’t sit down to really think about why they really are stressed out. Is it because they have a need to control everything, and when things are out of control the stress rises? Or is it because they have real anxiety and have never seen a physician or counselor to get therapy.

So here’s what I recommend–so get out a pen and a piece of paper and spend about 30 min. really thinking about what stresses you out of life? Make sure you’re in a calm place without distractions. You want to get more in touch with your heart, what I call. “tuning into your heart,”  in order to get into contact with the wisdom that all of our hearts have.  Sit quietly and make up your list. Try to be as specific as possible.

The next, step 2 is to get clear about why you need to change now.  By this I mean you want to write down all the negative things that could happen to if you don’t change. For example, you might have a heart attack. Or your anxiety attacks could actually send you to the emergency room. Stress can also have a profound effect on our work, making this unproductive, and reducing your changes for advancement.

And what about the effect of stress has on your relationships? Perhaps you’re having conflict with your spouse or significant other because you bring your stress home.  Or perhaps you have a very short fuse with your children. However stresses bothering you, you want to identify what could happen if you leave the stress go unchecked.

Finally, the 3rd thing you will need to do is to find a powerful reason to make a change. As I said earlier pain and pleasure control us.  And unfortunately, pain is a better motivator. So you need to really think hard about the pain that you’re going to experience if you don’t make this change now. What is it you want to accomplish in life? How is your stress preventing you from reaching what you want?  What will be the long-term consequences on my family particular those people I truly love if I don’t reduce the stress in my life? These are the questions you need to ask yourself.

About long ago I wanted to make some changes in my own life. And what seem to be limiting me were feelings of fatigue and tiredness.  I’m a cardiologist and have a very busy schedule at work. And I also write, produce online courses for stress reduction, and teach seminars. But I found that I was having difficulty pursuing these things without becoming overwhelmingly tired, because of choices of the foods that I was eating. Even though I’m not significantly overweight, I was drinking caffeine, and eating more sugar than I should’ve been. And although I tried for years to break these habits I have never been completely successful.

Yet by using the methods I’m giving you right now, I was able to make a significant change and stick to it.  Energy and vitality for me are one of the most essential things in life.  And this is my powerful motivator. It’s enabled me to make dramatic changes in my eating and to give me the willpower for follow-through.

So follow what telling you right now. Identify your stressors, get clear about what are the bad things that will happened in your life if you don’t change, and then find a compelling reason to make a change (one can actually motivate you to follow through).

If you do this you won’t have to wonder, ” how long will I have to wait to start reducing my stress?”

It you like to see this teaching in video format feel free to go to my YouTube website at the address below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLSTu3Wbreg&feature=youtu.be

Feel free to comment on these things.  I’d love to hear from you….

Dr. KirkLlaman

We all feel the effects of stress, but what is stress really?

Why does stress bother us so much in the modern world?

If you thought about it you’d realize that we all get stressed out so easily- at work, with our families, emotionally something happens every week to make us feel stressed out.

But what really is stress?  Did you know that our reaction to stress comes from our basic biological makeup?  It’s the process that is called the fight or flight reaction of the body. It’s a natural response that we were born with to help us respond to danger.

Our bodies adaptation to stress is related to the fact that we are really ancient creatures, with millions of instincts that run our bodies that we learned back from our caveman time.

As Dr. Robert Sapolsky tells us in this book,  “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers,” the stress that we feel is there to protect us.  Imagine that you were a zebra living in the jungle and out jumps a lion that is trying to make you his lunch.  Instantly, within a few milliseconds your body goes into overdrive.  Your heart rate jumps, blood surges to your leg muscles, and you’re off and running for your life.  Such a bodily reaction is natural and it’s critical for your survival.

Our stress in the modern world is much more subtle.  Lions aren’t chasing us.  Our stress isn’t sudden or what is called acute stress. Rather, it’s long term or what is called chronic.  It’s our boss telling us we have a deadline ten minutes before we are supposed to leave work. It’s our child getting sick and we have no time to leave to go to the doctor.  It’s the first rushing through traffic and then the sitting in traffic.

But what happens in our bodies is that our bodies react to this smaller and less pervasive stress in the same way.  Our fight and flight responses get turned on.  But unlike the Zebra they don’t always get turned off.  They stay on.  What seems like the little annoyances of life lead to a constant stimulation of our bodies.

Stress is life.  It’s what happens to us as we live.  Some stress is good.  Studies have shown that people perform better when under some stress.

Yet, it’s when we let our reaction to stress remain in the “on” position that stress begins to have a negative impact on our bodies.

So how do you get stress relief?  How about Stress Management?

Today I’d like to give you one practical tip that you can do to turn off the stress in your life.

The tip for today for this month is called “awareness.”

I want you to be aware of how your body holds onto stress.  Awareness is critical because if you’re not aware of something you can’t change if.  Imagine if you’re not aware of the gas gauge of your car and see don’t become aware that your car is on empty.  You could end up running out of gas.

So awareness is critical if we want to change something.  And it’s critical for overcoming stress.  You need to be aware because the body because the body’s response to stress is always manifested in your body.

What is your body’s response to the stress in your life?  You can evaluate this by “checking in with your body. In particular, I’d like you to check in with your neck muscles.  Many people hold onto stress in their neck and upper back.

So just for a moment, close your eyes and focus on your neck and shoulders just where the neck reaches your shoulders.  “What do you feel?”

Is you neck tense?  Is your back tight?  If it is you’re probably holding onto stress in your neck and could perhaps be affecting your whole body.

Lets take a minute to let go of that stress.  So if you have someone else around who can massage your neck let them spend five minutes massaging your neck and your upper shoulders.

If you don’t have someone around you can do it yourself.  Take your right hand and gently begin rubbing the right side of your neck.  Do this for about a minute.  Go up and down the neck, and also the upper shoulders.  Repeat this with the left hand on your left side.

Now, take a deep breath in through the nose and let it out through the mouth.  Do this again.  And repeat it a third time.  Do you feel less stressed?  You should.

It’s important to become aware of where your body is holding onto stress.  Just a short message but one that can make you feel better, from Dr. Kirk Laman, the wholehearted cardiologist, and author of “Stressed Out Heart” your guide to helping you overcome the stress.

Life sometimes gets in the way of Life.  What do I mean by that?  Sometimes we get so busy, that we don’t seem to have time for anything but running.  As I write this on a Friday night after having my computer crash.  Spending hours loading software, recreating files, etc.

It seems like life is a road race.

We run here and there.  Life is hectic.  Filled with seemingly never ending duties that get in the way of what’s important.

What’s important?

Taking care of yourself-physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Our hearts need time to rest from the rat race.

Take the time, your health demands it.

Your psyche needs it.

We live in a pill society.  People want a quick fix.  They don’t want to walk, do yoga, or change their eating habits.

Mostly they want a pill to keep them well.

Yet, Illness didn’t come from a pill.  For the most part people are ill because of what they eat and what they don’t do.  They eat too much of what isn’t good for them.  They don’t exercise like they should.

It’s been said that only 1 person in a 1000 is willing to really look closely at themselves to achieve healing.

Whether it’s physical, mental, or even spiritual healing- it’s rare to find people who are willing to commit to the work.

I talked last time about taking the plunge.

Being open to new ideas about where your life needs to go.  So how’s this?  Are you willing to be open to the idea of making a radical change in what you eat?

If you have heart disease or feel fatigued all the time- are you ready to be open to anything?

People want to be well.  I know I do.   Thankfully, I’m am for the most part.

Yet, everyday I see people whose lives have been twisted, pulled and spun looking like your laundry after the high spin wash cycle.

You know what I’m talking about?  Perhaps you know someone who looks like their own laundry?

Overcoming such trauma requires digging deep.  You can’t heal your emotional heart by just dipping your toe into the water.  You have to dive in, head and heart first.  You have to commit and then commit again to The Heart Work That Heals.

By this I mean you need to work with methods that can get you where you want to go.

You have to take the plunge.  Break many pictures of what you think can lead to true  healing.

Stay tuned.

I’m going to share with you secrets the really work.

I take care of people with physical heart disease.  The cure is clear.  Eat this. Don’t eat that.

Move and move and move.  Avoid what harms the body- cigarettes, excessive fat, etc.

Ah, but healing the emotion illness- the other illness of the heart is more challenging.

And what about the spiritual illness?  Now you’re talking.

You have to focus the searing light of the Remembrance of the One, with a magnifying glass precision, deep into the layers of the real heart.

Past the chest, past the physical down into the pit of what makes us all tick.

You don’t find many crowded rooms when you stand in such a light.   It’s a leap.  A leap into the hot flames of the Divine love.

It’s not for the faint of heart.  Maybe that’s why so many in the world are sick?

Many American’s are in denial. They refuse to acknowledge that they have a problem with their health, particularly their heart health.

They have lost the idea about heart healthy living. Denial isn’t uncommon. It is quite the norm. Let me share with you a story about a patient who illustrates this denial.

A few months ago I saw a 50-year-old man who I have been taking care of with heart disease. About 3 years before our last visit Bob began having chest pain and rushed to the Emergency Room. Due to his typical symptoms they performed a cardiac catheterization, which revealed that all three of his coronary arteries were severely blocked.

Coronary Bypass surgery was performed for all three of his blocked arteries. He came to me about six weeks after his bypass surgery. He was a big believer in holistic medicine and wanted to take care of his heart disease with as few medications as possible.

I said to him, “Preventing heart disease isn’t that easy. Being safe without medications is difficult.”

“I know,” he said, “But I want to try it without medications.”

“OK, lets take stock of your lifestyle habits,” I said. “Your serum cholesterol is 260mg/dl and your bad cholesterol is 170mg/dl. This is way too high. The bad cholesterol needs to be down around 50-70mg/dl.”

Luckily he didn’t smoke or have high blood pressure. His family history was positive with his dad having a heart attack at the age of forty-five. We both looked at his belly. It was huge. He stood five feet seven, and weighed about two hundred thirty pounds. All of his excessive baggage was carried in his protruding belly. Honestly, he looked eight months pregnant. His belly hung over his belt a good four inches.

“I work out all the time,” he said. “And honestly, I don’t eat that much.”

Staring at his belly, I had a hard time believing him. He gave me a run down of what he ate and on the surface it seemed pretty good. So I asked him to give me a detailed dietary list. I asked him to write down everything he ate over the next four weeks. I gave him some literature on the Mediterranean Diet and made plans to see him back in a month.

On his return visit, a month later, his weight was unchanged. He still appeared very pregnant. Looking at his dietary report, it revealed what I had suspected. He was in denial.

He believed that he was eating a healthy heart diet, but it wasn’t really true. His dietary history confirmed that he was consuming about 3500 calories a day, with a high percentage of saturated fat- ice cream, cheese, beef, and pork. Eating the excessive calories and wrong types of food explained his big belly and his heart disease.

I explained to him that for his size his caloric intake would have to be much lower, perhaps 1500-2000 calories a day for him to loss his belly.

“Preventing heart disease,” I said, “will require that you dramatically alter your food choices.”

I gave him some detailed recommendations. Over the next three years, I saw him every 6-9 months. Nothing changed really. Each visit we would talk about his diet, the types and amounts of foods that he needed to be consuming.

Every visit he would say to me, “I just can’t believe I can’t get this belly off. I don’t eat much of anything.” Periodically, I would go through his food list. Ice cream and a big steak was still a twice-weekly item on his list.

After his last visit, I began to wonder, “Why is it so difficult for people to be honest about their health?” This man was an intelligent business owner. I had explained over and over, that something was amiss in his body, something from his lifestyle that was causing his heart arteries to be blocked by cholesterol deposits.

Is it easy to change our lifestyles? No, it isn’t. But we can’t even start the process unless we are honest with ourselves about what we are doing.

Bob refused to acknowledge that he had a problem- that his eating was out of control. Six months after our last visit, Bob was stricken with severe chest pain. Now however, he was having a heart attack. Two of his bypass grafts were closed and his heart muscle was damaged.

I saw him in the hospital, distraught, and credulous.

“I don’t know how this has happened to me,” he said. “I exercise and I don’t eat that badly.”

I glanced at his belly, still eight months big from ice cream and steak. I could only shake my head.

dreamstine.com

Our hearts want to be connected.  They need to be connected.

Connected to what?  Connected to greater peace, love, and to be more open- this is the connection that I am talking about.   I’m talking about learning to live with a more “open heart.”

Why an open heart?  Let me tell you a short story.

In the 1980’s Dr. Dean Ornish was the first physician to prove that heart disease could be prevented and even reversed.  Prior to this time, it was believed by all medical authorities that once you had heart disease it was incurable. .  Heart disease prevention was discounted.  The idea of heart healthy living didn’t exist.  Heart disease was known to be a fatal condition.

You were certain to slowly get worse and eventually die.  You didn’t’ recover from heart diseasse.

Dr. Ornish’s research was revolutionary.   And of course, many people in medicine didn’t believe him.

In his book,  “Reversing Heart Disease” he recounts going to a very famous cardiologist, the head of his training program in Houston, and suggesting that he wanted to do a study to determine if diet, exercise, and yoga relaxation could reverse heart disease.  His trainer’s remark was “Why do you want to do something so radical?”

Indeed his ideas were radical for the times.  Luckily, he did the study and turned the scientific community upside down.  Imagine- diet, exercise, and yoga relaxation could reverse heart disease.

Interestingly, a part of his study was group therapy sessions.  In these sessions Dr. Ornish found that the ability to connect, to share, to have what he called- an “Open Heart” was critical in the healing process.   Besides following a healthy heart diet, people interested in preventing heart disease or reverse existing heart blockages needed this part of the equation as well.

It was essential that they learn stress relieving techniques and open their heart.  Importantly, stress and chest pain could be reduced with these methods.

So where do we stand, thirty years after Dr. Ornish’s remarkable scientific discovery?

Sadly, Dr. Ornish’s lessons have been mostly ignored.  The vast majority of patients that I see in my cardiology practice consider yoga or stress relieving techniques as foreign.  They turn their noses or shake their heads when I suggest these methods.
They have no idea what an “open heart” means or how to obtain it.
So how do you develop a more open heart?  How can a person learn deepen their heart connection and ward of heart illness?

In my E book, A Broken Heart Can Kill You, available on my website, I go into detail how to determine if you are at risk of developing heart disease.  I also outline specific techniques for reducing your risk, included are audio CDs. Many other authors offer books, and audio CD’s for this:  Deepok Chopra, M.D., Andrew Weil, M.D.,and others.

Here are some simple keys to begin the process of connecting more deeply to your heart:

1.    Believe that heart disease prevention is possible for you.
2.    Find a quiet place away from noise or distraction.  Preferably in the evening before bed or early in the morning.
3.    Plan on setting aside 15-20 minutes for this technique
4.    Sit quietly, and bring your attention to the heart region.  Focus on feeling your actual heart.  You may feel it beating.  Just notice what your heart feels like.
5.    Now breath in through the nose, and on the exhale say, “Ahhhhhhh.”  This is the sound you make when deeply relaxing.
6.    Repeat, “Ahhhhhh” again on the exhale.  Feel this sound as it vibrates the heart region.
7.    Repeat this over and over for 10 minutes.  You may want to find a set of meditation beads or a necklace so that you don’t have to be aware of the time.  (You can find these in the store on my website, drlaman.com)
8.    After 10 minutes of saying, “Ahhhhhh,”  stop and notice your heart.  Notice your state of relaxation.
9.    Repeat for 10 more minutes.
10.     Finally, stop and enjoy the feeling of peace in your heart.

I have utilized this technique and other more advanced guided meditations and these methods have been shown to help people deepen their relaxation.   Dr. Ornish has shown that similar methods can help prevent heart disease.

Are you willing to expand you mind and learn to have a more connected and open heart?

If you are than you can be someone whose open heart can put you on track for heart healthy living.

Dr. Kirk Laman

Do you want to live a life free from Heart Disease?  Would you like to have someone you love reduce their chances of having heart disease.  Are you interested in heart disease prevention?

If you answered “yes” to either of these two questions then you should consider adopting the Mediterranean Diet.

Medical studies have shown again and again the virtues of following the Mediterranean Diet as far as reducing your risk of getting heart disease or suffering a heart attack.  A medical study in the Archives of Internal Medicine in May of 2005, looked at over 1,302 Greek men and women who were followed for 3.78 years to examine how critical it was to follow the diet closely.

Those people who had closely followed the diet had a 27% reduction in death when compared to people who didn’t follow the diet closely.  Heart disease prevention was proven by following this healthy heart diet.  Stress and chest pain are also linked.  People who follow this diet reduce their chest pain.

Not long ago I was going through the diet of a man in his 60’s who had suffered a heart attack.  I had been seeing him for over seven years.  Each visit I encouraged him to follow the Mediterranean Diet.  On his last visit I asked him to tell me everything he had eaten in the last week.  I was shocked to discover that he was eating ice cream nearly everyday.

I asked him, “Haven’t I talked to you numerous times about the importance of following the Mediterranean Diet?”
A sheepish look, crossed his face.  “Yes, you’ve told me that.  But I love ice cream.”
“And his beef,” his wife who was sitting in the corner added.  “He likes beef and cheese.”
A closer look at his diet revealed that he had changed from eating beef daily to 3-4 times per week.  He still ate bacon, ham sandwiches, and pizza.  I had a hard time understanding how someone who knew they had heart trouble wouldn’t take the time to follow the proper diet.

It seems that many people don’t understand that their diet is the key culprit that is causing their heart disease.  Even after their doctor tells them over and over, it is hard for people to understand that 2 + 2 equals 4.    If you have heart disease then something is going haywire in your body that is causing the buildup of cholesterol deposits inside your arteries.

Let me make it clear “this is not normal.”  In cultures that follow the mediterranean diet, or the asian diet- heart disease is very rare.  Studies from different cultures have shown conclusively that our Western diet is the culprit in the formation of coronary heart disease.  Strict vegetarians who don’t consume animal products or highly processed foods seldom develop heart blockages.  In the indigenous cultures of South America, Africa, or Australia heart disease rarely occurs.   These cultures eat mostly fruit and vegetables and rarely consume meat.

So when you know that what you eat is very important for preventing heart disease, it is critical that you become extremely diligent about following this diet.  The key thing is to adopt the diet and then become religious in following its rules.  One thing I commonly tell my patients is to follow the 90/10 rule.  By this I mean that you need to be eating foods that are consistent with Mediterranean eating over 90% of the time.   Only 10% of the time should you be straying off the path of good eating.  So try very hard to limit your red meat consumption to no more than 1-2 meals a month!  Yes, I said only 1-2 meals per month.

Here are the rules you need to follow on the Mediterranean Diet if you want to reduce your chances of developing coronary heart disease.

Rule #1: Consume a high percentage of fish.  Eating fish 3-5 times a week is good.  be careful about the type of fish you eat.  Some fish can be high in mercury.
Rule#2: Avoid saturated fat.  This is the fat that comes from animal products:  beef, most pork, high fat dairy products.
Rule#3: Consume nuts daily.  Walnuts, almonds, pecans, macadamia’s- are great.  But most nuts are good.
Rule#4: Load up on fruits and vegetables.  Avoid high glycemic carbohydrates and eat plenty of fresh fruits, vegetables, and legumes.
Rule#5: Put uncooked olive oil into your eating plan.  Try to eat 3 tablespoons of uncooked olive oil every day.
Rule#6: Avoid processed foods of all types.  Anything that comes in a package should be avoided.
Rule#7: Adopt a Mediterranean carefree attitude.  It is clear that stress is a culprit in heart disease.  If you’re someone who worries a great deal you need to find ways to combat your stress by learning stress relieving techniques.

If you adopt and follow these 7 important rules and learn heart healthy living, you’ll stand a good chances of preventing heart disease.

Your life will also be healthier.   And you’ll even feel better.

Remember:  Live longer.  Follow the Mediterranean Diet.