YOGA AND HEART DISEASE

In the summer of 1991, I took Nischala Joy Devi's Cardiac teacher training on "Yoga of the Heart". I now know that 50 percent of Americans have heart disease. Many of my family members are included in that group. As a result, I'm a little sensitive regarding heart disease. So often people like my father- say, "I'm genetically predisposed to heart disease. I'll just eat what I want and if my doctor requires it, I'll take some medication for it." Given our busy lives that sounds like a reasonable course of action. It is what most people do, if they are not first forced to have surgery.

Beyond genetic predisposition, the causes of heart disease are a litany of modern life problems: stress, poor diet, lack of exercise, being totally self-focused. As a friend says "It's hard to get off the hamster wheel." But, as with so many health issues, predisposition may be the loaded gun, but behavior is what sets the bullet to fly.

There is good news. Heart Disease is preventable and reversible. The Lifestyle Heart Trial (commonly known as the work of cardiologist, Dr. Dean Ornish and his team) has proven that a diet of low-fat (vegetarian) foods, moderate exercise, support groups (sharing of feelings) and yoga will reverse heart disease (See Program for Reversing Heart Disease, Ballantine Books, New York, 1990 & Journal of American Medical Association, December 17, 1998).

The bottom line is that surgery and drugs are band-aids. They don't heal the heart and the systems of veins and arteries that support it. Only changing one's lifestyle can create a healthier heart. After one year, Dr. Ornish's study found that people had 93% decrease in Angina (heart pain); after 5 years, the study's angiographic findings indicated 5% opening of artery passages.

All the things that are the hardest for people with heart disease to do are the ones that they must do: talking about feelings, giving up all those luscious fats (ice cream, burgers, steaks, etc.), taking the time to exercise (and focus on that alone) and being open to one's true self (the path of yoga). Yoga may be the easiest introduction to healthy living for these folks. Once they try it for a while they get hooked. As I tell my new students all the time "Yoga is good stuff".

Yoga of the Heart is about healing and wholeness. That "Good Stuff" is getting down to the essential of who we are, learning to be present and learning to open ourselves to value and care for ourselves and others. The five essential parts of this yoga practice are: yoga postures, deep relaxation, breathing exercises, healing imagery & meditation. These five should be combined in a yoga practice session for an hour every day.

I usually think of the heart as the energy that joins the earth elements to the passageway of breathe energy, mind energy and spirit. What a difficult role that must be. Physically, the heart is a muscle that is active the entire time that you live. We allow it to rest sometimes, but we hope that it never stops. In our fear that it will stop, we wrongly think we need to protect and shield it. But, like any muscle in our bodies the heart needs to be used and then rested. Most of all, the heart must kept as open as possible to allow blood, air, energy and love to flow.

When I first began acupuncture treatments, my practitioner was always treating my "Heart Protector". I asked her once what the "Heart Protector" did; she told me that it was like a door in a passage that would open and close to allow emotion to move appropriately through my being. I understand now that the heart as it functions, is a very real reflection of that emotional passageway. It must open allowing a strong current of blood to flow through and it must take comfortable pauses in its work. I now know that a strong yoga practice is also a "Heart Protector". The combination of asana, pranayama, deep relaxation, imagery, and meditation allow my entire being to become more whole and function in a healthier manner. It allows me at times to experience the timelessness, the dance, the peace and the play of living. Stresses and fears of the world we live in will continue around me, but my practice brings me back away from fear, to my true self.

Many people manifest their bottled up emotions through the body with heart disease; others will self-medicate to deaden the mind and the heart; others may become compulsive, trying to make the world right by restraining their breathe and heart, etc. They have indeed sought to lock up the heart from feelings of pain, sorrow, grief or love. Too often people live rough, lonely and diseased lives while they could be enjoying and truly feeling the dance, the play and the tragedies of being spirits on a human plane of experience. As more people benefit from programs like Dr. Ornish's and trainings like Nicholas Joy Devi's we will begin to know people who have not only reversed their heart disease but who have also become Yogis along the way. This can only have a Tran formative role in our culture. I feel very hopeful that as more people practice yoga, they will return to themselves. Finding some place of peace within themselves they will bring peace to the people and environment around them. Wishing for you a winter season, which strengthens and opens your heart. And wishing many moments of peace and gentle rest.