Category: Heart Sisters

Can gardening ward off heart attacks?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 1 Comment

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥  @HeartSisters

It turns out that gardening is associated with better cardiovascular health among older adults compared to older adults who do NOT garden, according to researchers at Penn State University.(1) 

Gardening, they explain, is considered “a multi-component physical activity that encompasses balance, muscle-strengthening, and aerobic exercise obtained through a range of activities and intensities.”

For example, most physical activity health guidelines recommend that adults “engage in at least 2 1/2 hours of moderate intensity physical activity per week” – at a level called a Metabolic Equivalent (or MET) of 3 or higher. (A MET is a number that indicates the relative rate at which you burn calories during a physical activity).

If you’re sitting down while reading this article, for example, that’s barely one MET. Reading won’t make much of a dent in your physical activity goals – unless you’re like my reader Helen Robert, a survivor of a SCAD heart attack who sent in this photo of my book propped up on her treadmill in Ottawa with the note: “This book has been getting me through my daily treadmill this week!”)  Thank you, Helen!  ♥

The Penn State researchers found that the older adult gardeners they studied “spend 15–33 hours/week gardening during the active growing season (May-July) – and the activities in which they engage average 3.8 METs.”(2)      .   
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Cold weather = worse angina symptoms!

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 12 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   @HeartSisters

“Baby, it’s cold outside . .🎵”   Even here on the typically balmy west coast of Canada (where our brave daffodils valiantly poke through winter soil each January), we’ve had snow and freezing rain this month. But cold weather can feel even worse for those of us living with angina (from the Latin, “strangling in the chest”) which is the chest pain linked to coronary heart disease).  Here’s why:         .      Continue reading “Cold weather = worse angina symptoms!” →

“Did that go okay?” How to tell if your message is landing

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 4 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   @HeartSisters

In the last half of the last century when I was working in corporate public relations, I was invited to speak at a marketing conference for female entrepreneurs in the city of Kamloops, B.C.

During my 45-minute presentation, the audience response was terrific – lots of nodding and smiling throughout, and several thoughtful questions at the end – all clues that signal a speaker’s messages are landing as planned.  On the plane heading home to Victoria from Kamloops after the conference, I pulled out the pile of audience feedback forms that I’d been given (old school: hand-written!) and I settled back in my seat to read them during my flight. One after another, the reviews were so nice. (One woman even wrote: “I want to marry Carolyn Thomas!”)  The last review I read, however, was one that stopped me cold:       .

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What I wish I knew back then: “How heart patients can make peace with an errant organ”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 13 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   @HeartSisters

Here’s my theory:  few health crises in life are as frightening as surviving a cardiac event.  I developed this theory while I was busy having my own “widow maker“ heart attack in the spring of 2008. Continue reading “What I wish I knew back then: “How heart patients can make peace with an errant organ”” →