Welcome to Dr. Warrick's podcast channel. Warrick is a practicing cardiologist and author with a passion for improving care by helping patients understand their heart health through education. Warrick believes educated patients get the best health care. Discover and understand the latest approaches and technology in heart care and how this might apply to you or someone you love. Hi, my name is Dr. Warrick Bishop and welcome to my podcast and videocast station. Today, I'm delighted to have as a guest for interview, Angela Paris, who's a registered nurse with a special training in ICU and coronary care, but she's also got a genuine interest in holistic wellbeing. And she's an author of two books, the first, Loving Your Heart, and the second, your human blueprint to an extraordinary life. Hi, Angela, and welcome. Thank you, Rory. Thank you for inviting me. Thanks so much for making time to talk today, Angela, and I know there'll be people listening who are really interested, particularly in some of your interests around an individual's cardiac journey, and I know you've got an interest in cardiac rehabilitation. So what I wanted to really ask you about in a practical sense is what do you see as some of the really important issues for cardiac rehabilitation that you come across for patients on a regular basis? What are the big three that you would see as the biggest challenges for cardiac rehab? Yes, I believe that cardiac rehabilitation is not just for people who've had a cardiac event. who's had a strength or a bypass, but I believe it is for anyone who's got any risk factors, who carry risk factors for heart disease, like high blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, obesity, as well as stress. Quite often, I believe stress and emotions can affect your heart as well. So managing those emotions. So cardiac rehab, is not about exercising hard it's also about how to how to release any emotional blockage in your heart because quite often i believe people have a lot of anger resentments blame right through their hearts and these things can also affect the heart so in a holistic way i believe It is not just making sure your cholesterol is down, your blood pressure is down, but also making sure that you are happy within yourself. So that's about releasing. So I think one of the very first thing that you said there is something that I really... resonate and really agree with you about and that's why we've been in contact over the last couple of years because we both are passionate and there's no doubt that cardiac rehabilitation needs to be before people have a problem then we can stop people getting sick in the first place so I so agree with that I mean leaving it to And rehabilitation is just, I think, too late and is like tow truck medicine rather than maintenance medicine. But what I'd really like to ask you about is this real sense of recognising that the heart carries these emotions and sometimes the issues with our heart are reflective of our mind, body and soul being out of alignment. really hear this bit about the anger and the resentment and the blame and the upset and stress. How do you assess people in that space? How do you deal with those issues, Angela? I believe that heart is our emotional centre and heart is also where we express love. So I always believe that we always say I've got my heart set on something or I love you with all my heart. We never express love or emotions using any other organ. Like we don't say we've got our lungs set on something or we love you with all my kidneys. So I believe heart is such an important organ that we express love. you know if you want to express that somebody's really kind you say you know they've got a big heart so it doesn't mean like physically big heart but it just means that they've got so much kindness and compassion so I totally believe that that most of the time we have a heart attack because of not just the arteries being blocked but also these emotional blockages where we are harbouring so much anger, so much stress and so much negative emotions and you probably have heard or seen people who had heart attack because they've been so angry and also sometimes people who lose a loved one can have a heart attack themselves because of the sadness they experience. That's certainly the case. I was going to say that's certainly the case, Angela. There's a condition called broken heart syndrome or tachosubo syndrome, which is such a big emotional outpouring. It looks for all the world like a heart attack. And occasionally that can kill people. But even if we take that emotional outpouring situation away, we've got good research that tells us that depression is closely linked with an increased risk of heart attack. So certainly there's an interplay between the mind and the heart. And you're right. The heart really is central to our emotional. directives and goals. I've never heard anyone say, I've set my kidneys on this as an idea, but you do set your heart. Yeah, that's right. It's a great... It is. And I think, you know, the easiest way to release those emotions is forgiveness. And I was talking to a cardiologist some time ago in Sri Lanka and... He wanted to know a bit about my book, Loving Your Heart. And I told him that I totally believe in forgiveness and letting go and also meditation. He said, Angela, if everybody did forgiveness and letting go and meditation, we won't probably have many heart patients. I'm not sure that's entirely true, but there's a fair bit of truth in that. Exactly. I think even if we accepted that coronary disease is a very complicated condition and involves cholesterol, blood pressure, genetics, focal factors, there's no question there's an emotional and spiritual interplay. And even if we said that emotional and spiritual interplay was not the main driver, my observation as a clinician is that the people who have their emotional state in the best care have the best journey. When there's something wrong with your heart and you bring anxiety and worry and fear. And add to the stress, it makes the journey worse. It makes the outcomes worse. And, you know, the quality of life just is lost, actually. So there's an incredible importance in that space. Do you help your patients with meditation, Angela? Is that something that you focus in on? Yes, I do. I have a meditation program, yoga and meditation. for healing your heart and um i'm planning to run some um programs here at my head uh doing some exercises plus um meditation because quite often high blood pressure you know it could be due to stress if it is due to stress meditation would help you know to calm them calm them down and bring that stress hormones down a bit. There's some very good evidence, as you're probably aware, that yoga is beneficial for reducing recurrence of atrial fibrillation and yoga is beneficial for reducing recurrent admissions for cardiac failure. So there's no doubt that bringing some calm... to the autonomic nervous system, that regulatory nervous system in the body that speeds us up or slows us down. If we can bring some control to that through yoga, we can help our heart and help our whatever condition the heart may be suffering through that process. Yes, yes, that is so true. As we discussed earlier, cardiac... rehab or cardiac wellness is before an event, you know, before you actually have a heart attack, it will be, you know, for anyone who carry those risk factors as a preventative so that they can reduce their risk of having a fatal heart attack or an untimely death. So that's probably what you promote a lot as well, as I do, talking about the heart. helping people to understand how to look after this vital and most important organ. Look, I think there's no question we're on the same page there, Angela. I'm going to wind up, though, because we've gone over 10 minutes. But what I really love about what you've said is that you really are talking about closing the loop and cardiac rehab, not just responding to people who are sick, but... really being prohab and fixing people before they get unwell, which I think is so important. And the other thing is you've really raised that awareness about our emotional wellbeing being so closely linked to general wellbeing and heart health. Thank you so much for sharing with us today, Angela. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Corey. Take your time. Thank you. I'm going to finish up there. For those who are listening, what an excellent bit of information to consider and think about keeping well, avoiding getting sick in the first place. And if you do get sick in the first place, making sure that you consider that stress, the balance. the emotional blockages that Angela was talking about. So wise, so sensible. And I see it every day myself. Thank you so much for listening. If you have any queries or questions, drop us a note at drWarrickbishop.online. If you've got any queries or questions, please don't hesitate to be in touch. Thank you for joining us. Look after yourselves. Until next time, please don't die from a heart attack. Goodbye. 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