Your Friendly Heart

As soon as you step out of mother’s womb, your lungs pick up a natural rhythm of breathing. From that moment on, the lungs keep on breathing and the heart keeps on pumping regularly throughout your lifetime without even a pause or short break.

The heart is simply an intelligent smart pump. One of the very important functions of the heart is to pump blood throughout the body; it is a closed loop circulatory system. Heart takes in certain quantity of blood per beat at a low pressure (systolic), compresses it, and then pumps it out at higher pressure (diastolic). The high-pressure blood stream circulates through major, minor, minute and micro size arteries irrigating the entire body. The blood stream irrigates body's cells with oxygen and multiple nutrients. This is as technical as we want to get on the subject in this essay. We want to develop a genuine friendship with our heart, our closest and constant companion that works for us silently with its own rhythm. A good friendship grows and matures with constant and meaningful communication. Good friends pay close attention to each other’s physical and emotional needs. Genuine friendship is mutual and unconditional.

In the spirit of genuine and caring friendship, our heart maintains a constant and intelligent communication with us. When it senses a small internal problem, it gives out an appropriate small signal. For a larger problem, it will put out a more pronounced signal. But rarely will it give a wrong signal. Some times we may misinterpret a signal relayed by our heart. The signals are put out in various modes such as belching (trapped gases), lack of breath, pain in arms or jaw, light-headedness, sweating and others. Each individual receives signals from heart, which are unique to his or her physiology. The question is, are you paying attention and listening to the signals put out by your friendly heart? We are not talking about listening to these signals with a doctor’s stethoscope. We are not doctors nor do we want to pretend to be. Recognize that our body has built-in smart sensors that can pick up signals from the heart and we don't need a stethoscope for that. We have to stay alert and tuned in to pick up our body's signals.

Self-awareness prompts paying close and constant attention to signals put out by the heart in particular and body in general. Through such vigilance, even small body signals can be picked up to avert or minimize future problems.

Arteries are hollow tubes through which blood flows. The inside walls of a child's arteries are smooth as silk. As a result, blood flows through them without much resistance ~ helping the heart to pump blood easily throughout the body. The arteries vary in diameter sizes from a few millimeters to micro millimeters. The inside walls of child’s arteries generally tend to be clear of any deposits. As we grow older, gradually the inside walls of the arteries tend to become relatively harder and rougher; enabling deposits of sticky materials of blood stream such as cholesterol and fats ~ resulting in reduction of inside diameter of arteries. This in turn raises blood pressure, forcing the heart to work harder and harder. You naturally get tired when you constantly work harder. Progressively if an artery or a bunch of arteries get excessively clogged with the sticky deposits and stop blood flow to the heart, the hearts pumping action stops resulting in a “heart-attack “ or alternately a “stroke” if the arteries in brain get clogged. This is obviously an over simplified model, but helps to drive home some points.

A calamity such as a heart attack or a stroke, when it does happen but does not kill you, can be a blessing in disguise. It is much more than simply a wake-up call. You become aware that a heart attack inflicts damage to the heart and body in direct proportion to the degree of neglect. It is not a revenge by the heart on its caretaker ~ You. Under the conditions, it is the best way that he your heart chose to handle the emergency. It transmitted a strong pain signal or knocked you out to slow you down

In the case of a heart attack, the heart was simply doing its job sincerely in trying to get your attention and medical assistance. As the supply of blood to the heart became throttled, the heart instantaneously transmitted sharp signals to you. You felt the signal as an intense discomfort in your chest, left arm or jaw. You or your doctor identified the discomfort and pain as a heart attack. If you were lucky, a paramedic or an ambulance or preferably both arrived just in time.

Sometimes a heart attack is fatal; sometimes it leaves the person disabled in different ways with complications. If you are still alive without complications after a heart attack, consider yourself lucky and thank the medical community for their expertise and timely assistance.

During the heart attack, your most sincere friend ~ your heart had done its job most efficiently. You were forced to pay attention to its signals when it was necessary and critical. Thank your heart for communicating the effective signals to you in a very timely manner.

The heart attack ~ you think that heart attack is a calamity that sneeked up on you all of a sudden with little early warning. You tend to blame your own heart or your doctor for not communicating with you. Recognize that your heart is your best friend. This friendship started from the moment you first started breathing and will continue until your last breath. You can always count on this bond of friendship.

The reality is that in your youthful years, you have either neglected or disregarded pertinent signals transmitted by your heart. Initially the signals were minor because the degree and nature of your neglect was minor. As you indulged more and more without paying attention to proper eating and exercising, the heart had started putting out more pronounced signals for you. If you still continued to disregard those signals and abuse yourself, a point had come at which blood flow to the heart stopped due to almost total blockage(s) in the artery. Your heart instantaneously identified it as a critical emergency and gave you that intense signal which you could no longer disregard. Medical assistance was summoned immediately. Your heart had done its job to help you and help itself.

A heart attack is the net result of several imbalances in the body, which have been allowed to persist for a prolonged period of time. The imbalances could be physical, chemical, emotional and in all probability a combination of all of these three factors. A combination of these imbalances causes the symptoms of heart disease (hypertension). Therefore an effective recovery from heart disease has to address all of the imbalances. Each individual’s internal imbalances are unique to the individual. Performing angio plasty or an open-heart surgery provides only a partial answer and temporary relief. A fuller or meaningful recovery and true healing comes from within.

Help your ever-willing heart to help you and enjoy the pleasures of a true life long friendship.