Hearts are made to soar.  They are destined to fly.  Do you know what I mean?

A few years ago, I saw woman in my cardiology practice (identity changed but a true story)  who was caught in an incredible rut.  Fear dominated her life.  She was afraid to move past what she agreed was a limited emotional and physical existence.  She had been divorced for over 15 years but refused to venture out into dating.  She had the financial means to travel, but was afraid to venture out alone.  She  was in her early 50’s.  Still in fairly good physical shape, but emotionally very old.

“Why haven’t you looked into dating?  You seem very lonely, and I feel you are depressed,”  I said to her as she sat in my office.  “Why don’t you just throw your fears out the window and go on a vacation, some place that is wild and exciting, a place you have never been.”

I watched her as I said the words.  A frown came to her face,  I could see that even as she thought of it, she was rejecting the idea.

“Yes, I am depressed.  I am lonely.  But the idea of opening my heart again, and risking getting it crushed is more than I can bear,” she said.  “And taking a trip by myself, no that’s something I just can’t do.”

She was in the office because she was having chest pain.  Indeed, it seemed like a typical cardiac pain- dull, squeezing in the middle of the chest with exercise and activity.  A stress test soon confirmed that she had a blockage of the front artery of her heart.  A subsequent heart catheterization confirmed a serious blockage of the left anterior descending artery.  She had a stent placed inside her blocked artery, and when I saw her a few weeks later she still looked depressed.

I made a bold move.   I wrote her a prescription for a vacation.  “You’ve been working for 10 years.  Now you have a heart blockage.  I’m wonder if this heart blockage couldn’t in some way be a metaphor for a blockage in the rest of your life.  Perhaps you heart is blocked to life’s possibilities.

I handed her the perscriptions.  It said, “3 Weeks Vacation in the Islands- No excuses allowed.”    “Here I said, don’t come back till  you’ve taken the medicine.  She left the office that day, still depressed.  I watched her walk out, shoulders drooping.  I had no idea what was going to happen.

I didn’t see her for 2 years.

On a sunny spring day, she walked into my office.  One look at her face told me she was a changed woman. Smiling largely, she gave me a big hug.

“Dr. Laman, that prescription you gave me was the best thing,   I left your office that day, still depressed, but it made me think.  Before my divorce I had been open, energetic,  I lived life to the fullest.  But you were right, my heart had become closed. It had lost its child like enthusiasm.  I took that vacation.  But I didn’t come back after 3 weeks.  Life began to open for me. I took a whole year off.  Having heart disease woke me up.  I realized that if I didn’t break out of my limited existence, I might not make it.

I chose to live grandly.  I’ve learned how to rock climb, scuba dive, and roller skate.  I met a man and we’ve been dating for a year.  I moved to the Southwest, something I always wanted to do.  My last stress test was great.  I have no chest pain.  I feel fabulous.

I’m back visiting my mother, and I just wanted to drop by to tell you, thanks. It was the best prescription I’ve ever been given.”

So what I would suggest is that your heart is infinite.  Within your heart is incredible healing power and a true inner compass.  If we can learn to listen to our hearts, to break down the barriers of limitation- then the sky’s the limit.

I suggest that we all live grandly.  Let our heart’s soar.

Patience is a virtue. We’ve all heard this phrase.  Many people say it in response to some difficulty or troubling event.  But patience is more than just a virtue, it is a powerful medicinal for healing the heart.

What do I mean by this?  What I mean is that if we can be patient when our hearts seem to be torn apart then we can indeed find peace.  And peace has been shown to have a healing effect on our hearts.

In countless medical studies stress, anxiety, depression, anger, worry, rage-  many negative emotions have be shown to cause heart disease.  They have in many cases been shown to lead to inflammation within the body.  Inflammation has been shown to cause heart blockages.  Any feeling or action that has the opposite effect surely will create opposite results.

Dr. Dean Ornish in his book, Love and Survival, has chronicled the many research studies that have shown the healing power of love.  I would highly recommend this book to anyone who doubts the curative powers of love.

No long ago, someone I cared deeply about treated me in what I felt was a very odd and saddening way.    At first, I was shocked at the lack of respect and politeness that they displayed.  My heart felt bruised and battered.  My mind tried to comprehend what had happened.  But at first, I could not.

Keeping our heart’s open when we feel rejected is difficult.  Some might even question the wisdom of such an approach.  For me as someone who longs to live more and more deeply in the heart,  my aim is to always see all things in the way of love.  By this I mean to look deeply at everything that happens to me as the universe’s attempt to make me more loving.

So I asked myself, “In what way can I approach this rejection from a loving space?”

The answer that came was:  “Patience.”    As much as we want to be treated in a certain way or to have life go as we think it should go, often this just isn’t the case.  Life moves in a way we cannot always fathom.   It is filled with twists and turns, ups and downs.

Patience is like an incredible balm that allows our bruised hearts to mend or even more importantly to endure.

We can’t always understand why or where life is leading us.

Yet, if we can find the strength to be patient, we can indeed mend our troubled hearts.  After struggling with the pain that I felt, I decided just to be patient.  I might never understand why a loved one would treat me in such an incredibly hurtful way- but I truly believe that all things are in the way of the love.  We have to just trust and be patient.

So I suggest you consider keeping a bottle of patience in your medicine cabinet.   Open the bottle and drink from time to time.  When life’s difficulties get you down it might be just what you need to overcome.

Patience is indeed a powerful heart medicine.

Sugar is bad for your heart health.

Ah, this should come as no surprise.  We’ve all been told this.  But a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA 2010;303:1490-1497.)  confirms what we all knew deep down.  Sugar isn’t good for you.

A lot of sugar is very bad for you.  If you eat high levels of sugar it can lower your good (protective cholesterol) and raise something called your triglycerides.  High triglycerides are a known risk factor for heart disease.

Its not surprising that American’s are overweight, obese, and very out of shape.  All you have to do is look at the amount of food and sweetened beverages that people consume.  But why do they do this?

It’s a question that goes back to the heart I believe.  People eat for comfort.  They eat to satisfy something emotionally that is missing in their lives.  You can call it tension or stress.  But I would suggest that it all comes back to the heart.

The heart’s of most people are troubled.  They work too hard.  They rush here and there.  They feel overwhelmed and stressed out.  The gravitate to sugar as a way to placate what is missing in their lives.

So what can be done to heal our hearts?  What has worked for me and many people is to begin the process of becoming more heart centered.  We need to learn how to live more heart centered lives.  We need to become more open hearted.

Dr. Dean Ornish in his book, Reversing Heart Disease (the first book to really prove that heart disease was reversible), observed that patients whose hearts were closed and troubled had more illness.  They were more likely not to follow a program of heart reversal and become well.

Indeed, in my own practice I have observed a common emotional link to most heart attacks.

Here are my suggestions for learning to become more heart centered.

1.  Acknowledge that you have a problem.   Many people want to ignore the fact that they feel overwhelmed.

2.  Seek out a method of heart opening that appeals to you. This might be counseling, meditation, guided meditations, journaling, or my favorite Sufi Practice of Remembrance.

3.  Work it. Whatever method you feel drawn to work at it.  Plan on spending 15-30 minutes everyday doing this technique.

4.  Listen to your heart.  Once you’ve found a method and are working it, listen closely.  Your heart will tell you important things about you life.

I have utilized these methods and taught hundreds of people how to become more heart centered.  It does indeed work.

Don’t use sugar as your coping mechanism.

Look inside and discover what your heart is seeking.

www.drlaman.com

Just back from vacationing in Florida.  We left Michigan’s cold weather for a few days in the sunny confines of Orlando.  Vacations are like a medicine.  They can be a real medicine for the heart.

We often think that medicine is a pill that we take, but medicine- something that can improve the body’s health can come in other packages.  It doesn’t have to be simple pill.

Modern life is very hectic.  We work.  We struggle.  Hours can be long.  All of this can create tremendous stress within us.  It is a well known medical fact that stress is damaging to our health.  Medical studies have shown that stress can double a person’s chances of getting heart disease.

A special heart condition called Stress Induced Cardiomyopathy has been identified in the last decade.  People, particularly middle-aged women, can develop a sudden weakening of the heart muscle.   The condition can produce heart attack like symptoms.  Patients can even die from this condition- all this because of stress.

Stress has been known to heighten the inflammatory response in the heart.  Inflammation has been shown to be the key factor in the development of dangerous heart blockages.

It is essential that we counter act the effects of stress.

Although we normally think of vacations as simple time away from the routine of life, vacations can have a true rejuvenating effect on the body.  Before heading to Florida, I felt tired.  My stress levels were way to high.  After spending just a few days, reconnecting with family, sleeping late, and just allowing the clutches of stress to fade- my body felt dramatically better.

We cannot just the importance of the emotions, thoughts, and things of the spirit on our overall health.  Our heart’s in particular are powerfully influenced by the non-physical aspects of our lives.

Have you gone on a vacation recently?

If you haven’t, you may be in need of a little rejuvenation.  A few thoughts.

1.  Let your vacation really be a vacation.  Leave work at home.

2.  Listen to your body and let your body guide you.  If you need to just sleep, then do it.

3.  Consider changing your vacation regime to let your heart open to new ideas and experiences.

4.  Act like a child.

Just some ideas for creating an opening for further heart healing.  I’d love to hear of other people’s ideas for rejuvenating the heart.

Grab onto rejuvenation.

We can think of our heart’s health much like the planet’s.  Much of America has been living under drought conditions for the past few years.  California especially has been under a drought.  Rain has come to California making people wonder if the drought is over.  http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_14872378?source=rss

Many people live with a drought of their heart.  Their hearts are dying for nourishment.

Our hearts need nourishment.  They need it on all levels.  We need physical nourishment, emotional nourishment, and spiritual nourishment.   If our heart is living in a drought condition it cannot be truly well.

Most cardiologists work at the physical level of the heart.  This is good.  We have to address the physical issues if we want to be well.  The foundation of health, heart health begins with what we put into out bodies.  If we deny our heart what it needs physically it will eventually become sick.  A drought of essential nutrients is bad.

Not long ago I saw a man in his late 50’s.  He had been in the hospital with a heart attack.  It was his fourth time to find that he had heart blockages and to receive cardiac stents to open up these blockages.  I said to him, “Why do you think you continue to get blockages?”

“I don’t know,”  he said.

“Well, something in you body is causing the development of heart blockages.  I could be your smoking, your family history, your physical inactivity,  your stress, or what you are eating.  These are your risk factors.  Unless you change the things you can change you are going to continue to develop blockages.  Wouldn’t it be better to prevent the formation of heart blockages and stay out of the hospital?”  I said.

I had reviewed his diet and found he consumed large quantities of high fat foods.

He looked at me with a look of puzzlement.  “You mean I would have to give up eating hamburgers and steaks?”  He made a face, “boy, I’m not sure I can do that.”

You might think this is a rare encounter.  Unfortunately, it is quite common.  The vast majority of people have difficulty understanding that what they eat plays a dominant role in the development of their heart disease.  They don’t understand that proper nourishment is essential and that proper eating habits are paramount.

Even more difficult is trying to convince someone that their emotions/stress could be a major culprit in getting heart disease.  Hundreds of research studies have proven that emotional pain, stress, and what I call having a “broken heart”  can created heart illness.

People understand this on an intellectual level but trying to convince them to attend a yoga class, take up meditation, or learn the technique of Practicing Remembrance is difficult.

The same can be said of spiritual health: hope, faith, love, forgiveness- all of these spiritual qualities are extremely important.  If they are not present in the proper balance and quality, then a person can become ill.

I can’t tell you how many patients I have seen who developed heart disease because they lacked hope. Hope of a better life, hope of becoming well, hope of being loved- with out hope many people cannot heal.  My spiritual teacher has said that hope is the most important thing a doctor can give his patients.

I think he is right.

So what is happening in your life.  Is your heart being properly nourished?  If you’ve been suffering through a droght of some kind- is it over?

He was afraid to let go.  Afraid to say no more.

“Do everything,” he said.

So his wife, an 87 year old woman from a nursing home laid in bed day after day.  Racked by a multitude of severe medical problems:  kidney failure, alzheimers, a weakened heart muscle, and severe emphysema.

She had no mind.  No coherent thoughts flowed inside her.  Just jibberish.  “My tube, my tube, my tube.”

The nasogastric tube bothered her nose.  She tried over and over to pull it out.  A severe infection raged through her body.  Numerous expensive antibiotics were given.   She developed a racing heart from her infection and low blood pressure.  Her chances of survival were extremely low.

Her husband, devoted and loving, was afraid to let her go.  So we pressed on.  Medications, tests, and more medications- the scene above isn’t unusual.  It is common, way to common.

Even when the inevitable is staring us in the face, loved ones have trouble letting go.  It’s normal.  It’s natural to think someone will live forever, should live forever.  But they don’t.  Everyone dies.

The health care debate has been raging itself over the last 2 years.  Republicans (mostly) ask- where will we find the money to pay for this new health care plan?   Recently Allan Greenspan suggested that if the Congressional Budget Office is wrong we could be in a whole lot of trouble: (http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/04/greenspan-on-heath-care-costs-severe-consequences-if-cbo-is-wrong.html)

If we want to solve the health care crisis we have to come to a consensus on when to let go?   As a society we have to determine what is the limit?  It’s not an easy answer.  Emotions run very, very high. But the money to pay for health care can be found within this debate.

Other societies have come to terms with this.  They have formed a consensus about who should receive heroic treatments.   For example, in America, kidney dialysis ($35,000-60,000/year) is offered to people at any age, in any physical condition.  In other countries, they limit dialysis.  Bypass surgery, expensive heart treatments, cancer treatment for incurable cancers, orthopedic surgery for people who don’t walk-  the list of very expensive treatments that are limited in other cultures goes on and on.

In America we need to start looking at this.    I’m not saying I have the answer to such sticky questions.  But anyone who works in medicine knows that you can’t pay for health care without finding a consensus regarding these issues.

A discussion at least would be helpful.

So I’m starting one.  I welcome your comments.

Our heart holds the key.  It holds the key to health, particularly emotional and psychological health.

Our heart also knows the answers to what we need.  Many people have written about this phenomenon- that the heart has a great intelligence.  But it is more than mind’s intelligence.  It is wholistic.  It is beyond understanding.

How else can we explain how a mother knows when something has happened to her child.? How do “gut feelings” always guide us to the right thing to do?

Heart intelligence defies understanding.  The Mystical Sufi’s say that that the divine cannot be contained by the mind.  Only the heart can contain and know the Divine.

So how can we tap into this heart intelligence.  How can we gain access to the wisdom and true understanding of the heart?

I’ve written before about the Sufi Practice of Remembrance.  It is an ancient, powerful technique for cleaning the heart, making the heart a vessel that can come to house the holy.

On a more practical tangent, the Heart Math Institute offers another way to tap into the heart’s intelligence.  Google “Heart Math” and you can go and review many scientific studies that substantiate the hearts intelligence and wisdom.  They also offer a technique for “tapping into the heart wisdom.”

You can also begin journaling and listening to your own heart.  Here’s a practical way to begin.

1.  Find a quiet place, away from distraction.

2.  Slow your breathing, take a breath in and out, deeply 3-4 times.

3.  Let your awareness begin to move into the heart region.  Take you thoughts and place them in the heart.  (It sounds silly, but can be done.  Just as you can put your awareness on any part of your body.  Place your awareness in the heart region.)

4.  Breath deeply and while your focus is contained in the heart region, ask your body, heart, your God to reveal wisdom or give you guidance.  Then listen carefully.  Trust the first thing that comes into the mind.

5.  Write down what you feel.

I’ve used this meditation sucessfully for many people.  You can also look at the technique of Practicing Remembrance found in my books or other venues.

Use this technique 4-5 times a week for best results.

Tapping into your heart is possible.  You can come to know the peace you desire.

Are you looking for peace in a work gone crazy?  Sometimes it feels like there’s no hope.  Life seems to be spiraling out of control.  Our own lives can seem that way.

Most of what people want comes down to a sense of peace in their lives.  They may define it as happiness, contentment, or security.  Yet, frequently this boils down to inner peace.

Wouldn’t it be great to have a road map to find your way home to this place?

I like to tell people that they can indeed get there from here.  There are ways, avenues, roads, and highways for reaching what we seek.

For me the path of Sufi Remembrance is that highway.  It’s something I’ve written about- but more importantly it’s something I’ve lived directly.  Remembrance of our true nature- that we are deeply, sincerely- a drop from the ocean of our creator.

Not HIM/HER but made in that pure image, created to be able to find our way back to that source.

It doesn’t have to be difficult.  But it does take a willingness to let go of preconceived ideas and sometimes even our learned beliefs.  And my experience isn’t the only valid experience.

Many avenues- methods, paths, roads to this return are available.

What does it take to begin feeling this peace?

1.  Find a path that resonates with your heart.
2.  Be willing to let go of any preconceived ideas of what we think is truth
3.  Commit to spending 20-30 minutes everyday to doing the ritual that will lead you back to an open, peaceful heart.
4.  Be patient.  It may take awhile for your heart to become at peace.
5.  Seek a teacher who has traveled the road before you.

In my experience this has produced results in the vast majority of people.

It can be done.

You can get there from here.

I see many people with heart disease.  Sometimes its hard for me to understand how they let themselves get to the condition they are in.

But then I see my own frailties.  I see at times my lack of will power.  When I’m tired or down, its easy to eat uncontrollably.  Or to sit like a slug on the couch and vegetate on TV.

So when I see a person of 400+ pounds who has an leg that looks like something I can’t really describe on this blog, and I wonder “How did they let themselves reach this point?”  I can only marvel at life’s mystery.

Life is a mystery, a glorious, unpredictable, unfathomable mystery.  Herein lies its beauty.  You can’t figure out life by reason.  The heart doesn’t know reason.  Our heart’s know the momemt.  What Dave Mathews calls- “The Space Between.”  Life is a space between reason and emotion. Between easy and overwhelming.

Yet, its mystery will jolt you like an amazing horse kick to the head.  Knock you on your butt till you see more than stars.

You’ll see yourself lying in a hospital bed, four times your normal weight, one leg dying…Your whole life in jeopardy because of wrong choices.

The horse who knocked you on your behind can’t be found- not by you anyway.

When you see such a person all you can do is shake your head and thank you God that he has looked favorably on you.

Work hard to deal with them compassionately.  Look past any judgement you might have and see their frailties.  Recognize that perhaps only providence has allowed you to be healthy.

Do you feel good?  Are you happy?

Most of us go through spells where we feel up and then other times when we feel down.  Its a natural phenomenon, but did you know that how you feel can affect your physical heart health?

It’s true most of us tend to think that how we feel is just a feeling- that it doesn’t affect us really.  Yet, this isn’t true.  It is well known medically that negative emotions can alter the body’s biochemistry and create illness.  Now we know that being happy can do just the opposite.

Researchers from England published a study in the European Heart Journal (Davidson, K.W. European Heart Journal, published online Feb.18, 2010.). After accounting for known heart disease risk factors, the researchers found that the happiest people were 22% less likely to develop heart disease over the 10 years of follow-up than people who fell in the middle of the negative-positive emotion scale.

People with the most negative emotions had the highest risk for heart disease and people who scored highest for happiness had the lowest risk.  (http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20100217/study-happiness-good-heart)

So the idea of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”  may be more than just mere mouthing of words.

You are what you eat, but you may also be what you think.

So consider changing your attitude.  One thing I promote is the Sufi technique of Practicing Remembrance.  This is an ancient method that has helped hundreds of thousands of people.  It’s available on my website bookstore.

Another way to change our mood and thoughts is through guided meditations.  In my book, “A Broken Heart Can Kill You,”  I offer guided meditations for improving your mental outlook.

We are what we eat.  We also are what we think.