Our Heart – Brain Connection Part 1

Our hearts and brains are electrical organs. But are you aware that their electrical fields intertwine with each other? They have a direct link with each other which means our hearts are literally energetically connected to our brains! Understanding this heart-brain connection which is called Behavioral Cardiology is a fairly new field of study. This is based on improving heart health, improving brain health, and vice versa. Thanks to Dr Laura Koniver for this wonderful information.

We know that our hearts are affected by stress. How many people have thought they were having a heart attack when it was really an anxiety attack? Did you know depression can be the cause of a heart attack?
Another interesting fact is the difference in the way a man’s heart and a woman’s heart respond to stress. Men respond to stress with an increased demand for blood flow, making the heart work harder to pump out more blood, but this creates a mismatch in how much blood can reach the tissues and the result is a heart attack.

Women respond to stress with a decrease in the blood flow to the edges of the heart which puts them at higher risk for ischemic heart attack. Both have the same result but different pathways.
This is important information for stress management treatments. Men would do better with blood pressure lowering supplements, grounding to reduce inflammation, and stress reduction techniques such as meditation, acupuncture and yoga. Women might benefit more from supplements that boost immunity, therapies that heal leaky gut and other auto immune pathways, and exercises that boost circulation and tissue perfusion like walking, aerobic exercise, hot yoga and deep tissue massage.

A study in 2017 discovered that increased activity in the amygdala (the emotional processing part of the brain) directly increases the risk of heart attacks in both men and women. Another study looked at what age women experienced PTSD and heart attacks. They concluded that a history of PTSD in younger females increased the risk of heart disease by 60%. Early trauma increases the risk of lasting heart health issues long term.
So basically, if you can reduce the stress in the brain, it will reduce stress in the heart.