Category: Heart disease and mental health issues

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

Negative vs. positive experiences: what you remember may depend on emotions

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 1 Comment

  by Carolyn Thomas   ♥  Heart Sisters (on Blue Sky)

If I asked you about the exact moment you were diagnosed with heart disease, would you be able to remember that moment? Research suggests that most of us (whatever our serious diagnosis) can clearly recall, often in surprisingly precise detail, the exact words used by the physician who broke the news to us – even decades later.

But what if I asked you what you had for breakfast last Tuesday?

The difference between those two questions about remembering seems obvious, because hearing a frightening new diagnosis is fraught with emotion. A bowl of oatmeal?  Not so much.
Continue reading “Negative vs. positive experiences: what you remember may depend on emotions” →

Do patients have a “happiness set point?”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 5 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥    @HeartSisters

How happy are you? Dr. Art Markman, a psychology professor at the University of Texas at Austin, wrote this in a Fast Company essay:

“People seem to have a happiness set point.(1)  Generally speaking, in the weeks and months after a significant positive or negative life event, you tend to return to roughly the level of happiness you had before that event – that’s the set point. It doesn’t mean that events can’t have a long-term influence on how happy you are – just that the best predictor of how happy you will be several months after either a major positive or negative event is how happy you were before it happened.”
 Continue reading “Do patients have a “happiness set point?”” →

The most frightening cardiac symptom

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 2 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥    @HeartSisters

The chest pain. The shortness of breath. The freakish pressure radiating up to the jaw or down the arm. All of these can be signs of a heart attack or other cardiac events..  But for Martie, a 46-year old heart patient diagnosed with Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection (SCAD), her worst symptom was described like this:

“The most prominent symptom I had, which kept getting stronger and would not go away, was the little voice in my head telling me this was NOT normal. It is my one piece of advice to all my friends. Listen to that voice in your head!”              . Continue reading “The most frightening cardiac symptom” →

Becoming a patient: a daily exercise in accepting reality

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 22 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥   @HeartSisters

It isn’t often I recommend children’s books to my readers – but I love Judith Viorst’s Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.*  This classic 1972 storybook had a profound personal impact on me as a young Mum while I was reading it aloud at bedtime (many, many, many times) to my own kids. It’s a story that teaches us how tough it is some days  to accept reality.  Here’s what I mean:     Continue reading “Becoming a patient: a daily exercise in accepting reality” →