Three things that make you happy – and three things that won’t

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 6 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

It turns out that feeling happy can actually improve our overall physical health – but there’s a catch.  According to an article in Harvard Medical School’s HealthBeat last month, positive emotions may need to be longterm in order to produce good health. In other words:

“Thinking positive thoughts for a month when you already have heart disease won’t cure the disease. But lowering your stress levels over a period of years with a positive outlook and relaxation techniques could reduce your risk of heart problems.”  

Continue reading “Three things that make you happy – and three things that won’t” →

What heart patients can learn from cancer patients

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 12 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥  @HeartSisters

Cardiologist Dr. Richard Fogoros has issued this blunt warning to those at risk for developing heart disease:

“You need to change your life. If you don’t, you will suffer the consequences  – possibly decades earlier than is necessary.”

In his Heart Health Center column, he observed that most high-risk people end up making only half-hearted efforts to modify their heart attack risk.  And he blamed doctors for enabling this lack of personal accountability.  Continue reading “What heart patients can learn from cancer patients” →

The concept of ‘mansplaining’ explained for you . . .

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 21 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

Regular readers already know how in love I am with the “Just a Little Heart Attack” film from the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women heart health campaign this year. In three short minutes, this film manages to do what countless other heart disease awareness campaigns I’ve seen fail to pull off: to be both hilarious and frightening, packed with life-saving education on common heart attack symptoms in women. The actress Elizabeth Banks – who also directed this short film, and whose real-life mother and sister have heart issues – plays a harried, multi-tasking mother trying desperately to get her family up, dressed, fed and ready to head out the door on time, all while completely ignoring her own worsening heart attack symptoms.

Elizabeth gets every small detail of this scenario pitch-perfect, including:

  • her “I’m fine!” reassurances as she reels with nausea, chest pressure, dizziness, jaw pain, neck pain, arm pain, weakness and profuse sweating
  • her apology to the 911 phone dispatcher for being a bother
  • and (my favourite scene!) her abject dismay at surveying the messy kitchen, knowing the ambulance is already en route and she won’t have time to tidy up before it arrives!

Women who have actually lived through this will probably recognize every excruciatingly familiar moment of what it’s like to experience a heart attack.

But noted health journalism watchdog Gary Schwitzer over at Health News Review felt otherwise about this film, which he criticized in a post called Disease-Mongering Du Jour: Heart Disease in Young Women.   Continue reading “The concept of ‘mansplaining’ explained for you . . .” →

Top 10 tips from the author of ‘How To Be Sick’

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 3 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

Ten years ago this summer, law professor Toni Bernhard and her husband flew from their home in California to Paris, planning to immerse themselves in Parisian culture for three weeks. But on the second day there, Toni became very sick with what appeared to be an acute viral infection. She spent most of those three weeks in a Parisian bed. And ten years later, Toni is still sick.

Despite being mostly bed-ridden, she wrote a book she called How to Be Sick: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide for the Chronically Ill and Their Caregivers and she also blogs at HowToBeSick.com.

To mark her 10th anniversary milestone, the medical website KevinMD.com ran Toni’s list of 10 lessons she has learned about being sick. Here is a sampling of those tips, remarkably useful for those of us living with heart disease, too: Continue reading “Top 10 tips from the author of ‘How To Be Sick’” →