by Lisa Holland on January 11, 2010
I had to think about “every little word” and its meaning in the first years after my electrocution. Because my heart was not functioning for a span of time, it wasn’t sending oxygen to my brain. The result for me was a situation called Visual Agnosia; which basically means loss of meaning.
In order to try and understand the meaning of words I would isolate each one and repeat it to myself, to see how it sounded. Then I’d listen to the inflection in other peoples’ voices when they said the same words; I’d also watch their facial expressions and mannerisms – I wanted to see how the words fit.
It was tedious work. But it taught me to sense the psychological connection to a word’s meaning.
The word Disease, as in Heart Disease, has lost its power. What… you say?
Although Disease means an interruption of an organ’s normal function – we have somehow come to think of Heart Disease as something we’ll think about later, when we’re older. Because we think we have more time to change the outcome.
Um…how do we know that we have more time - especially when we don’t know how much time we have.
What if I called it Heart Poison? Does this bring up a different image?
Would we take more ownership of how we treat ourselves if we thought that certain choices could poision us?
The thing about Heart Disease is that we have some power over it.
Obvously, we cannot change some risks: Family History, Gender, Age, and Factors We Don’t Know Anything About.
But, others are changeable: Weight, Cigarette Smoking, Cholesterol, Inactive Lifestyle, Social Support, Diabetes, Stress, Hostile Personality, and Hypertension.
Try using the word Poison instead of Disease for a while and see if you make better choices.
Sometimes just changing one word can cause us to change the way we think and act.
by Lisa Holland on December 27, 2009
We are naturally social creatures. We come into the world by way of a social system; a family. From that day forward we experience all kinds of social relationships, in our neighborhoods schools, jobs, churches, and in our daily communications.
So when we read that Social Support is a risk factor of heart disease, we don’t give it much attention because it seems normal and everyday.
If you think that social support is just talk…here are two studies to think about:
1. The Stockholm Female Coronary Risk Study, examined 131 women aged, 35 to 65 years, who were hospitalized for an acute coronary event. The study found that women with little or no social support were two and one half times more likely to have serious coronary artery disease than women with strong social support.
2. The Honolulu Heart Program, studied 4,653 men, asking about their social interactions with relatives and coworkers. The study found that the larger a man’s social network was, the less likely he was to experience angina, a heart attack or any type of heart disease.
Even today, with all we know about the risk factors of heart disease, we aren’t totally sure why Social Support is significant. Some research has shown that people with low social support have higher systolic blood pressure and heart rates than people with high social support.
Regardless of what the research will ever tell us, I believe that from their first beats, our hearts know what they need to stay strong and healthy…
other hearts.
by Lisa Holland on December 20, 2009
She said…“it feels like no one cares that I’m going through this anymore.” Shelia’s words remind me of how lonely a period of illness and healing can be.
A long illness can bring up unexpected and complicated emotions in the people around you. Usually, neither patient nor friend is aware of this subtle shift – but it often sounds a lot like Shelia’s words.
The shift represents a change between Internal and External thinking.
- Helping others as they heal is normal. We have empathy for their situation and we do what we can to help make their situation better (External Thinking).
- But when their illness lingers, it often brings up fears about our own health. We begin to wonder how we might cope if we were in their shoes (Internal Thinking).
If you’ve ever felt what Shelia’s felt, here’s a way to express your emotions:
Say, “I want to thank you for all you’ve done for me while I’ve been ill. I can only imagine what feelings my illness has brought up in you. I want you to know that if you are ever in my place, I’m going to be there for you.”
by Lisa Holland on December 10, 2009
We usually don’t care for anything unless we see its worth to us.
Think about the basics of worth; what’s a car worth if we can’t drive it? Nothing…so we change the oil and make sure it has gas. Then it brings us value.
But what about our worth to ourselves?
I’ve seen people’s self-worth grow when they recognize a personal characteristic or a strength that they didn’t know they had.
I remember a study in graduate school where three guys in a psychology class decided to take turns complementing an unattractive woman in their class – they wanted to see if their complements made a difference. It wasn’t the kindest study, but they learned that the more they complemented the woman on her hair, her choice of clothes and smile, the more she began caring her herself.
She washed her hair more often, wore more flattering clothes and started smiling. At the end of the semester, she had become so self-confident and attractive that each had asked her out on a date. She felt it was worth it to care for herself.
The story fits a theory; we care for what we value and deem worthy.
The thing is…I believe when you see how important your heart is…when you appreciate how much it does for you, then you will care for it better than you ever have.
by Lisa Holland on December 2, 2009
I was eight years old when I was electrocuted. And, like most children who develop empathy for teddy bears and imaginary friends, I developed tremendous empathy for my heart.
I feet sorry for my heart. I believed that my poor little heart must have felt all the pain that I, thankfully couldn’t remember.
Years later while I was in my doctoral program, I began thinking back over those years. I came across several pictures I’d drawn in 1973 and showed them to my therapist. She said, “Lisa, you were really working hard to figure this out weren’t you?”
She was right.
Now, as I work with people who are trying to heal their emotionally broken as well as physically broken hearts, I wonder why it is that we only seem to think about 
our hearts in relation to DISEASE or LOVE.
1. Physical (an organ) that we’ll think about sometime in the future; Heart Attack or Heart Disease.
2. Symbolic (of love) or lost love; Heartbroken or Heart Ache.
Seems we’ve taken the out-of-sight and out-of-mind attitude when it comes to caring for our hearts.
I think the question we should ask ourselves is this…
Why do we think that our heart will remain committed to us 24-hours a day regardless of how we treat it?
We don’t even expect this out of our relationships!
Develop empathy for your heart.
by Lisa Holland on November 29, 2009
Liz is angry at her husband’s doctor.
Henry, her husband of twenty-one years died six months ago of heart related issues and Liz has been spitting mad ever since.
When her friends ask if she’s talked about her feelings with the doctor, Liz screams… NO! ARE YOU KIDDING…I wouldn’t give him the time of day!
So, Liz’s well-meaning and loving friends have learned NOT to ask any more questions. And, because they don’t ask, she has gotten angrier!
Now Liz talks about her anger to strangers in the grocery store, to retail sales clerks and even to the new postal carrier. She continues to focus on her anger and refuses to think about anything else.
Liz is ruminating.
Rumination can be a mask for grief especially after the death of a loved one. By ruminating about her anger Liz can avoid thinking about her sadness.
In psychology rumination describes a vicious cycle. It is the repetitive dwelling on a problem, with a focus on how bad you feel and how awful things are – without taking action to make things better.
Research on undisclosed trauma tells us that rumination tends to extend the time that people are sad or anxious and if it continues without attention it can make a sad situation even worse.
What we know is this…regardless of why a person dies, the more the surviving spouse is able to talk about the death with a friend, therapist or trusted person, the more able they are to grieve the loss and move beyond bereavement.
Some of Liz’s rumination is understandable. It may have helped her stay connected to her feelings as she slowly accepted the reality of Henry’s death.
But chronic rumination can hurt us more than help us…
by Lisa Holland on November 18, 2009
Most of us can tolerate some physical pain, some emotional pain, some anxiety and some chaos BUT we usually don’t seek medical care or therapy until we hit our threshold and the pain has become unbearable.
We avoid thinking that it’s time to act because if we don’t act, then maybe we can fool ourselves into thinking that the problems aren’t really happening.
I recently read an article that questioned why, with all the education about the symptoms of a heart attack, were some people still hesitant about getting to hospital ASAP!
I think this hesitation is also about pain – about the way we think about and define pain. For some reason we still think that it’s not a heart attack unless we are in physical pain.
Not all symptoms are physically painful, especially with women; some symptoms are “out of the ordinary and unusual.”
Yes you may have PHYSICAL PAIN – but if you don’t, ask yourself this…Do I have UNUSUAL PAIN or UNUSUAL DISCOMFORT?
For example,
- Do you sense that You Don’t Feel Quite Right?
- Are you Dizzy, when you’re usually not?
- Are you Anxious, when you’re usually not?
- Are you Weak, when you’re usually not?
- Are you Fatigued, when you’re usually not?
- Do you have Shortness of Breath, when you usually don’t?
Many women still say…”if I go to the hospital and it’s not a heart attack they might think I’m overreacting or I’m a hypochondriac.”
Trust yourself and stay in touch with “what feels right” and with “what does not feel right” for your body.
If your symptoms are out of the ordinary for you – Err on the side of caution and GO… ASAP!
by Lisa Holland on November 14, 2009
Andy worries about everything…if his future in-laws will like his family, if he will develop a thyroid problem like his mother, if the occasional palpitations mean that he has heart trouble. To others Andy’s just a chronic worrier. Although he denies it, Andy believes that if he’s worrying, he’s doing something and this insulates him from anything “bad” happening in his life.
Obviously, some worry is reasonable; it’s a good thing to wonder if you’ve turned the oven off.
But… chronic worry is generally a need for control. It also puts unnecessary strain on your heart and compromises your ability to cope with stress.
Here’s how: a region in our brains called the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) helps organize the conversation between what we feel and what we know.
Our ACC is typically activated by a sudden thought or startling situation like a loud bang in the kitchen just as you’re about to drift off to sleep!
Picture a clear light tube with red blips of light running back and forth; on one end, the light alerts our consciousness, and on the other end, it signals our muscles to prepare us to act. The more we agonize the faster the light travels back and forth – the faster it travels – the higher our heart rate goes!
If we give every problem, every decision… the same amount of worry and its, say a 10 on a scale from (0 to 10) then WE are keeping our hearts in an unnecessary state of strain.
After my electrocution, I worried all the time because I was trying to figure out what happened to my memory and my heart. My situation was so unusual and I couldn’t ask anyone about it because they didn’t know either.
So, over the years I learned to rely on FOUR thoughts that help me; I hope they’ll help you too:
1. Ask yourself – Will I Ever Know the Answer?
2. Ask yourself – Can I Change Anything?
3. Prioritize Your Worries - Rank them from 0 to 10 (after I rank a worry, often times I can stop because I see that the thing on my mind just isn’t worth worrying about).
4. Give Yourself Necessary Time – (if my worry is real then I give it the time it deserves, I plan a day and time hopefully without interruption and I think about it AND I let myself feel it; no TV, radio or phone, just me and my plan for the situation I’m worried about.
Most of us have something important that deserves our attention but we’re afraid to just be with it. Maybe it’s sad or maybe we are fearful that we don’t have the resources to change it so we try not to think about it…but, we really ARE thinking about it – we’re holding it just beside our consciousness all day long until it wears us out!
We all worry: help your heart by worrying about what matters.
by Lisa Holland on November 6, 2009
The surgery is over and you are trying to get back into your life but you’re overwhelmed with feelings of sadness or depression.
Did you know that research over the last two decades has shown that depression and heart disease are common companions? Studies show that depression can appear after heart disease and/or heart disease surgery.
Although it’s still difficult to pinpoint the exact reasons why, we know that depression affects a person’s ability to stay regular with their medications and participate in life.
Symptoms of depression can stem from a number of factors:
- Family history, physical health, environmental factors
- Improper balance of brain hormones that help regulate mood
- High levels of stress, loss and grief, life transition
Since this topic is quite broad, I’ll focus on one area that I’ve seen with my patients and that I have also come to understand through my own experience.
After the cardiac event many people experience a conflicting range of emotions. On one hand they are grateful to be given another chance – and on the other hand, this new chance comes with a hefty dose of rules and regulations; don’t smoke, eat right, lose weight, check your cholesterol, exercise, control your stress. All the necessary changes can make you feel like you must be perfect – and well, perfect isn’t reality.
Not all patients will experience depression, but for those who do, the conflicting range of emotions can make you feel stuck. Feeling stuck and not knowing how to cope with these emotions can cause you to feel hopelessness.
Feeling hopeless about your life and having no interest in your life are two main factors in depression.
Just knowing that your feelings are real and that conflicting emotions can cause hopelessness, could help you begin to feel unstuck. Once you begin to feel unstuck your ability to cope may increase .
Often times healing can begin with a single shift in insight – I hope this insight helps you.
Your life is important. If you are feeling overwhelming anxiety or sadness, please don’t hesitate to ask your doctor for a referral for psychological care or appropriate medication.
References:
Pratt L., Ford D., Crum R., et al. Depression, psychotropic medication and risk of myocardial infarction. Perspective data from the Baltimore ECA follow-up. Circulation, 1996; 94 (12): 3123-9.
Frasure-Smith N., Lesperance F., Talajic M. Depression and 18th-month prognosis after myocardial infarction. Circulation, 1995; 91 (4): 999-1005.
by Lisa Holland on November 2, 2009
I traveled to France two weeks ago with plans to post to my blog while I was away. When we landed in Paris I put my computer in my seat while I helped the older gentleman in front of me get his bag down from the overhead bin.
Just as I handed him the bag, the collective force of people pushing through the isle moved me forward and further away from even thinking about my computer – into the sights, sounds and smells of the Charles DeGaulle Airport.
Later when I unpacked, it hit me – I could see my little computer lying in seat 37-F of Delta’s Flight 22 to Paris. I immediately called the lost and found at both Delta and Air France, sent several e-mails in French and English, and a fax but no response. I checked again on the day I flew home, but it was long gone.
I apologize for the break in my blog. But… if it were not for this mistake of mine I might not have received such lovely e-mail from readers asking me about where I was!
Seems something good is “eventually” traded for someting bad.
I recieved some thoughtful comments about whereI’d been – here are two:
- …”Susan’s Story helped put words to my feeling of emptiness after my last doctor’s appointment”
- …”I’m kind of ashamed that I’ve just expected my heart to pump, regardless.”
Thanks again for your kind e-mail,
Lisa