Our hearts hate stress.
That’s because it raises heart rates, cholesterol levels and blood pressure. It can make us fat, particularly around the belly, and that increases the risk for metabolic conditions, like diabetes and heart disease.
Stress also means we’re more likely to take up heart-harming habits like smoking cigarettes, drinking too much, skipping workouts or gorging on junk food.
But who isn’t stressed these days? From rush-hour madness and mounting bills to blood-boiling bosses, stressors are everywhere.
But annoying people and events don’t create stress and heart disease. We do.
“Stress isn’t what happens, but how we respond to what happens,” says psychotherapist Steven Alper, former director of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program at the Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine in San Diego.
That’s because when our brain senses threat, a primitive part of the nervous system triggers a physiological “fight-or-flight” response, Alper explains.
The evolutionary mechanism was handy for our cavewoman ancestors during a saber-toothed tiger attack. The problem is, thousands of years later, the nervous system still turns on the stress response when you’re arguing with your spouse, stuck in traffic or the boss says “boo.”
That’s where harm is done: The stress response triggers changes such as high blood pressure, palpitations and elevated blood sugars – “all of which put strain on our heart and body and increase cardiovascular risk in the immediate and long term,” says internal medicine physician Steve Tan, M.D., director of the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Program at the California Health and Longevity Institute.
Still, you don’t have to stay trapped in a world of tension. To change your response, try these fun natural remedies for stress.
1. Meditation
Meditating can lower blood pressure as effectively as medication and better than stress-management training or health-education classes, according to a 2007 study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
It also improved the severity of congestive heart failure in 23 African-American men and women with heart disease, the University of Pennsylvania found.
That’s because “meditation calms the stress response and boosts our relaxation response,” Tan explains.
Try it: New meditators may find it tough to stop their minds from wandering, so focusing on a tangible object may help. Here’s how:
1. Choose a quiet, interruption-free spot.
2. Sit comfortably in a chair or cushion on the floor with good posture, hands on your thighs or clasped in your lap.
3. Light a candle and focus on it, watching the flame move, grow, flicker and change colors.
4. When your mind wanders, bring your attention back to the flame.
5. Start with meditation sessions of 5-10 minutes and gradually build to longer periods. Aim for 20 minutes, the Mayo Clinic suggests.
2. Art Therapy
Art therapy may sound like child’s play, but it’s a powerful ally against stress and heart disease. Creative pursuits – like journal writing, music, dance, painting, sculpting, sketching, collage, even quilt-making – can decrease anxiety, stress and mood disturbances, according to a 2010 review of studies published in the American Journal of Public Health.
In fact, hospitals often incorporate creativity techniques into their healing programs: Cleveland Clinic offers it to its Heart & Vascular Institute patients. Veterans’ hospitals use art therapy to relieve depression and anxiety, especially for post-traumatic stress disorder.
“Art therapy is a wonderful way to empty your mind and reconnect to the present – similar to meditation,” says board-certified art therapist Joan Stanford, who leads art “playshops” at the Mendocino Center for Wellbeing in California. “With stress, you feel boxed in, overwhelmed, tightly wound. By ‘playing’ with materials, words or ideas, you unwind, release pressure and enjoy the process.”
Try it: Don’t worry, you don’t have to be “artsy.” Here are Stanford’s tips for stirring creative juices:
1. Set the stage for a meditative environment with candles and soothing sounds. Classical music, for example, lowers heart and breathing rates, according to a 2001 Australian study.
2. Breathe slowly, close your eyes and savor the moment.
3. Write for 15 minutes, choosing a specific topic, such as something that worries you, or whatever comes to mind. Need inspiration? Fill a sack with random items, Stanford suggests. Then reach in, pull out an object and write about it for 5 minutes. “Let the object speak to you,” she says.
4. Not a word person? Then just doodle on a sheet of unlined paper. “Using one pen, let your hand move around the page in all directions,” Stanford says. “Allow overlapping and looping.”
5. If you’re right-handed, try doodling with your left hand or vice-versa. Or close your eyes.
6. With different-colored markers, pens, chalk, pastels, pencils or watercolors, outline any shapes suggested by your scribbles. “For example, a circle may resemble a head, balloon or sun,” Stanford says. “Add eyes, strings, rays or whatever the shape seems to ask for.” Rotate the page in different directions to see more options.
7. When the page feels “finished,” give it a title. Or keep an “art journal” with your drawings.
3. Deep breathing
Breath is a powerful indicator of stress levels.
“When we’re stressed, breath shortens and quickens,” says psychotherapist Leslie Davenport, who specializes in stress management at the Institute for Health & Healing at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco.
Deep breaths also calm you – lowering blood pressure, reducing anxiety, slowing heart and respiration rates and easing tension, the Mayo Clinic reports.
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