Learn to Manage Stress and Decrease Your Risk of Heart Disease
SSY SOCAL
Disease
You can't eliminate stress, but you can manage it with techniques like yoga.
Article on Health.com
The cardiologist in urgent care at Scripps Green Hospital in La Jolla,
Calif., was puzzled. Sandy Levin had had a heart attack, yet she didn't show
any of the classic risk factors. "I looked like the perfect picture of
health," she said. "But I was under excessive stress, and that's what did
it."
Levin, 56, of San Diego, wasn't overweight and didn't have high blood
pressure or high cholesterol. But she'd recently started taking care of her
mother, who had Alzheimer's disease.
"While people know stress plays a role in how they feel physically, they're
often unaware that it is a risk factor for heart disease," says Suzanne
Steinbaum, MD, an attending cardiologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York
City.
Stress creates inflammation
Several studies have linked stress, job strain, and general demoralization
to a greater risk for heart disease, though the relationship is less causal
than other lifestyle factors, like smoking. Stress triggers an increase of
cortisol, a "stress hormone," which can raise blood-sugar levels and blood
pressure. The overproduction of cortisol can lead to a constant state of
chemical arousal, which can eventually cause a heart attack.
One study of Belgian workers found that those who reported feeling they had
little control of their work life had increased levels of markers of
inflammation such as C-reactive protein and fibrinogen, which are linked to
heart disease.
Like the Belgian workers, Levin felt she had little control over her
circumstances. But protecting your heart doesn't always require stress
reduction, says Dr. Steinbaum. Rather, you need a plan of action when the
stressful situation presents itself.
Learning to change your response to stress
"You can't always change circumstances," she says. "If you get in a taxi cab
and there's tons of traffic you can hyperventilate and your heart rate
increases and your blood pressure increases. Or you can reframe the
situation and take the time to relax and breathe. That's taking a stressful
situation and making it less stressful. Everyone has stress," she adds.
"Don't react by internalizing it."
Levin made that mistake. "When I was stressed, I'd get angry at everything
and everybody," she says. "I'd hold that anger inside and I wouldn't show
it, and by holding it in, it would hurt my heart more."
After her heart attack, she took an eight-week stress management class. She
now does yoga almost every day and credits that with protecting her heart.
"Before, my head was going a mile a minute," says Levin. "It was only after
I learned how to meditate and relax my mind that I was able to control my
stress."
Siddha Samadhi Yoga (SSY) is a Time-tested tool for Stress Management
because SSY is all about Self Management
and Stress Management is Self Management!
Learn about how to manage stress in the Free seminar on "Total Stress
Management (TSM) through Siddha Samadhi Yoga (SSY)" on Friday October 2nd
between 7pm & 9-30 pm at 16540 Aston St., Irvine, Ca 92606
For RSVP by September 30th contact Vishakha on (949) 705 6670 or email at
<mailto:in...@liyausa.org> in...@liyausa.org
Love & blessings,
Vishakha Purandare
Be joyous within!
Life Yessence Academy (LiYA) USA
Southern California Chapter
105 Liberty Street, Tustin CA 92782
Email: ssys...@liyausa.org;
Tel: O- (949) 705 6670; C - (949) 689 9738
Blogger: http://ssy-socal.blogspot.com
Web: www.liyausa.org
We are a non-profit, non-religious, educational trust.
