Crimes of the Heart

And the heart attacked themed restuarants.

What was the sexiest thing you were hiding under your clothes this Valentine's Day? How about a healthy heart? We knew that's what you were thinking.

But customer service can be pretty sexy too, and nothing tells your patrons you love them like a) offering a monstrosity called the Quadruple Bypass Burger and b) suing another restaurant for offering heart-stopping food with a hospital theme that's too similar to your own.

Yeesh.

Remember, when it comes to your heart, exercise and Omega-3 fatty acids, good; Quadruple Bypass Burger and stress from lawsuit over the rights to the Quadruple Bypass Burger, bad.


But here's some news that will get the blood flowing again.

Two recent studies have shown meditation can play a role in lowering blood pressure and the occurrence of cardiovascular disease. That's right. A consistent practice of sitting, breathing, and listening to the beat of your own heart could lead to it ticking away a few years longer.

One study, published by the American Heart Association, looked at the effects of meditation on high-risk people, many with already established coronary artery disease.

"After following about 200 patients for an average of five years, researchers said, the high-risk patients who meditated cut their risk of heart attacks, strokes and deaths from all causes roughly in half compared with a group of similar patients who were given more conventional education about healthy diet and lifestyle.

Among the roughly 100 patients who meditated, there were 20 heart attacks, strokes and deaths; in the comparison group, there were 32. The meditators tended to remain disease-free longer and also reduced their systolic blood pressure by five millimeters of mercury, on average."

The other study, published by the American Journal of Hypertension, was geared towards college students. The findings?

"Students who were at risk of hypertension and practiced meditation reduced systolic blood pressure by 6.3 millimeters of mercury and their diastolic pressure by 4 millimeters of mercury on average."

Dr. Theodore Kotchen, associate dean for clinical research at the Medical College of Wisconsin, thinks both of these studies go back to managing stress. "Hormones, neural hormones, cortisol, catecholamines - all tend to be elevated in stress," he explains. Kotchen is not alone in thinking these elevated chemical levels have a direct link to cardiovascular disease.

One more, slightly more provocative study, suggests that there might be a way to test your heart health right here and now.

Sit on the floor, extend your legs out, and try touching your toes. If you're flexible enough to touch your toes, your cardiac arteries are probably flexible as well.

What? Flexible arteries? Who cares?! The New York Times describes arterial flexibility this way: Supple arterial walls allow the blood to move freely through the body. Stiff arteries require the heart to work much harder to force blood through the unyielding vessels and over time could, according to Kenta Yamamoto, a researcher at North Texas and lead author of the study, contribute to a greater risk for heart attack and stroke.

What the researchers found in this study was a clear correlation between inflexible bodies and inflexible arteries in subjects older than 40. Adults with poor results on the sit-and-reach test also tended to have relatively high readings of arterial stiffness. In short, the study concluded that "a less flexible body indicates arterial stiffening, especially in middle-aged and older adults."

Some stiffening of the arteries happens naturally with age, and just because you've got tight hamstrings does not mean a heart attack is imminent. The good news is that even if your arteries have already started to harden, that stiffness may not be set in stone. A study at the University of Texas in Austin, also outlined in the New York Times article found that a group that stretched consistently over 13 weeks increased the pliability of their arteries by more than 20 percent.

So while time may be the only thing that can heal a broken heart, if your heart is merely stiff, try going to a yoga class!




Heart health lines up with the idea of whole person wellness. There's not just one pill you can pop, one veggie you can eat, one exercise you can do that'll guarantee a strong heart--it's the combination of lifestyle choices.

So from the bottom of our Recess lovin' hearts, we wish you a happy healthy, and stress free Valentine's Day weekend. And while you may want to consider going easy on the ooey gooey desserts, we're all about the red wine, for the sake of your heart's health, of course.


Find less stress and more flex with Recess! >>