Stress & Your Heart

February 10, 2010

Interview with Dr. John M. Kennedy, author of the book The 15 Minute Heart Cure: The Natural Way to Release Stress and Heal Your Heart in Just Minutes a Day

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Mike Carruthers:
Would you say your life is stressful? If so you should realize that stress is tough on your heart.

Dr. John M. Kennedy:
And as a cardiologist, I’ve seen thousands of examples of how emotional stress directly impacts, and wreaks havoc actually on our cardiovascular health.

It does it in an indirect way where we release these stress hormones, adrenalin and cortisol when we trigger our “fight or flight” response. And these two hormones can cause arrhythmias that can trigger a heart attack and it can also cause heart failure, which are the three most common problems I see patients for in my practice.

But stress also has an indirect effect on your heart, which is also not good.

When we are stressed and we don’t acknowledge the symptoms and signs of stress we tend to exercise less, we eat comfort foods, and we tend to drink and smoke more. And those two problems that stress creates (the direct and indirect) can cause the perfect storm for a cardiac event.

Of course we can’t avoid stress but Dr. Kennedy says…

We can attenuate and decrease the hormonal storm that’s damaging our body by learning ways to counter the stress response. And that is eliciting the relaxation response, which is the equal and opposite to the stress response.

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here