February has been designated Heart Health month since 1964.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the US and the world. There are many things that help reduce the risk of heart disease – eating a healthy diet, maintaining a healthy weight, getting blood sugar and blood pressure under control, getting plenty of exercise, stopping smoking and more.
One thing we may not think as much about is gratitude. The practice of thinking about and acknowledging the things we are grateful for in our lives helps our heart! Gratitude is simple and powerful. Whenever I feel scared or lost, I think of all the things I’m grateful for. It brings me into the present moment, it calms me down and I remember that I have so much in my life to be grateful for. This brings my stress level down.
When we are grateful, we feel better, act more kindly to ourselves and others, and feel happy.
It turns out that being grateful reduces inflammation, a big contributor to poor heart health, and improves our heart rate variability. Heart rate variability reflects how much time we spend in our sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and our parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). SNS is fight or flight and PNS is rest and digest. Many of us spend a lot of time in SNS and this creates stress in our bodies.
When we practice gratitude, we are able to breathe and shift out of fight or flight and get into rest and digest. This has a calming effect on our bodies and especially our heart.
Make a list of all the things you are grateful for and when you feel down unhappy or stressed, go to the list and find something to reflect on that will bring your stress down and your spirits up. It could be simple things like a hot shower, being out in nature, petting an animal, seeing the beauty in life that is always there but we don’t see it anymore.
Support your heart by taking care of your health, being grateful for what you have rather than focusing on what you don’t have.
With gratitude,
Elaine L Stewart, CHC
