Category: Heart disease and mental health issues

– posts here focus on the often overlooked emotional impact of having a cardiac event

10 non-drug ways to treat situational depression in heart patients

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 20 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥    @HeartSisters

I’ve written quite a lot here about my own debilitating experience with depression following my heart attack.(1)   I have since learned that post-heart attack depression is alarmingly common – and alarmingly under-diagnosed – among women survivors. Mayo Clinic cardiologists report that up to 65% of us experience significant symptoms of depression, yet fewer than 10% are appropriately identified.

NYU Women’s Heart Program cardiologist Dr. Nieca Goldberg says women under age 60 are particularly susceptible to depression because a heart attack is such a major psychological trauma, especially when it occurs at a younger age. Studies show, she adds, that depression is an important risk factor for adverse outcomes in cardiac event survivors:

“It’s a life-changing, stressful event. It’s a shocking experience. There are constant concerns among survivors about whether they are going to be able to return to their usual life.”

Continue reading “10 non-drug ways to treat situational depression in heart patients” →

Is it post-heart attack depression – or just feeling sad?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 7 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥  @HeartSisters

One of the small joys of having launched this site is discovering by happy accident the wisdom of other writers – even when they’re writing on unrelated topics not remotely connected to my favourite subject which is, of course, women and our heart health. For example, I happened upon a link to Sandra Pawula‘s lovely blog called Always Well Within. Sandra teaches mindfulness meditation, and she lives in Hawai’i (note her correct spelling).

She also has a hubby and three cats. I don’t even know this woman, but I like her already.  And while scanning through her beautiful site, I was stopped cold by an article she called: “Why Sadness is the Key to True Happiness“.   Continue reading “Is it post-heart attack depression – or just feeling sad?” →

Can denial ever be a good thing for heart patients?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 5 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

When my little green car started making a funny ♦PING!♦ noise recently, I tried to talk myself out of what I was hearing.  “I don’t think it’s quite as bad as it sounded yesterday . . .”  And when my heart attack symptoms became more and more debilitating, I tried to talk myself out of them, too.

And besides, hadn’t the E.R. doctor emphatically diagnosed those symptoms (central chest pain, nausea, sweating and pain down my left arm) as merely acid reflux just two weeks earlier? In both cases, I guess I was being unrealistically hopeful. But as writer Margaret Weis once warned:

“Hope is the denial of reality.”

Denial has a bad name. To be “in denial” – whether it’s about a niggling noise coming from under the hood or about something as serious as a health crisis – is to be called foolhardy or just plain stubborn. But in some cases, according to Mayo Clinic experts, a little denial may actually be a good thing. Being in denial for a short period can even be a healthy coping mechanism, giving us time to adjust to a painful or stressful issue.   Continue reading “Can denial ever be a good thing for heart patients?” →

Resilience: it’s hard to feel like a victim when you’re laughing

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 6 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

Somebody recently described my presentations on women’s heart disease as “part stand-up comedy and part serious cardiology talk!” I think she was right. I now believe, in fact, that some parts of my own heart attack story are downright hilarious. In hindsight, of course.

They weren’t one bit amusing when they were actually happening.

Authors Drs. Steven J. Wolin and Sybil Wolin would likely say that this ability to see humour in a catastrophic health crisis can be a key ingredient in healing resiliency. In their book The Resilient Self, they describe creativity and humour respectively in this way: “they turn nothing into something and something into nothing.”   Continue reading “Resilience: it’s hard to feel like a victim when you’re laughing” →