Close relationships and a sense of community are essential not just for emotional and mental well-being, but also for physical health.  Heart disease remains our #1 killer.  Increasing evidence shows that "opening the heart" emotionally also opens and heals our physical hearts.  This is the focus of cardiologist Dean Ornish in his latest book:  "Love and Survival:  The Scientific Basis for the Healing Power of Intimacy."  If you're not already familiar with Dr. Ornish's work, please pay close attention--this is important stuff.
         The heart's rhythms provide the background music for our lives.  With each "beat" the heart's muscular walls contract, pumping fresh blood to the entire body while simultaneously cycling blood to the lungs for renewal with oxygen.  With each relaxation, the heart fills with blood for the next beat.  Hard working cardiac muscle needs lots of oxygen and nutrients, but is not nourished by blood passing through the heart's chambers.  Instead, the heart "feeds itself" by pumping blood through the famous "coronary" arteries and their branches, which descend over the outside surface of the heart.  If these arteries become clogged with gunk ("atherosclerotic plaque") the heart muscle downstream is deprived of oxygen, which can cause the chest pains known as "angina."  If the oxygen deprivation is severe enough, it can trigger a heart attack.
         When we speak of "heart disease," we usually refer to the clogging of the coronary arteries.  (Clogged arteries in the brain can lead to a "stroke.")  In the past, it had been thought that heart disease couldn't improve--that at best it would not get worse.  Dr. Ornish questioned this assumption, and in the late 1980s conducted a study on whether "comprehensive lifestyle changes" could reduce coronary artery plaque and thereby increase blood flow to the heart muscle.  The results of this research are revolutionary, if only we will heed them.
         The patients in the study all started with severe coronary heart disease and were randomly divided into two groups:  the "control" group received standard medical advice and treatment, while the "experimental" group made major lifestyle changes, including a very low-fat, whole foods diet, stress reduction with slow stretching exercises and meditation, moderate exercise (walking), and participation in regular groups focusing on communication, opening up with feelings, compassion, and group support.  All participants had cardiac tests both before and after the year-long study.  Most of the control group became measurably worse, while those making the major changes showed reduction in their arterial blockages, had much less angina pain, had in many cases decreased or stopped blood-pressure medicines, and felt better overall.  Ornish published a popular guide for heart health in 1990 with his "Program for Reversing Heart Disease."  He recently published a follow-up study showing that people who maintain these lifestyle patterns show continuing reversal of heart disease over time.
         The lifestyle changes were not separated out, so it wasn't known (for example) whether diet or group support made "more" difference.  But it was definitely shown that we can reverse heart disease.  Ornish notes that sweeping lifestyle changes are often actually easier to make than small changes, because with the big changes people feel better pretty quickly, and this provides motivation to continue.
         Interest has steadily grown, and now over forty major insurance companies cover participation in Ornish's program, which can often be an alternative to cardiac bypass surgery.   As the medical system begins collapsing under its own weight, we must increasingly apply the old adage "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."
         The specifics of the program make sense.  It certainly isn't farfetched to suppose that diet profoundly affects our health.  Ornish's recipes taste fantastic, but are sometimes a bit complex.  Many wonderful and easy recipes can be found in the books of John McDougall, MD, who recommends a similar diet.
         "Moderate exercise" can be as simple as walking a half-hour a day.  Those with existing heart disease or other health problems should start slowly and may need an individualized program.  Ornish discusses studies showing that we get the health benefits of exercise by going from the "no exercise" to the "moderate exercise" group.  Athletes may be more "physically fit," but they aren't necessarily healthier.
         Slow stretching exercises such as yoga release tensions from the body and mind, nourish the cartilage covering the bone in all our joints, and are often nearly magic in preventing the "aches and pains" that many accept as inevitable.  Meditation focuses and calms the mind, and is compatible with any religious beliefs or with no religious belief.
         Of all the aspects of the program, however, Ornish himself seems most excited by the power of "opening your heart" to your own feelings, to others, and to a larger whole.  He cites research showing that "people who feel lonely, depressed, and isolated have three to five times the rate of premature death and disease from virtually all causes when compared to those who have a sense of love and connection and community in their lives."  A study at Stanford University randomly divided women with metastatic breast cancer into two groups.  The groups got similar medical treatment, but the women in the experimental group also met together once a week for mutual support.  "Five years later," says Ornish in an interview, "it turned out that the women in the support group lived twice as long.  I
almost fell off my chair when I saw those data."
         "Support groups" may not always be the answer; the main point is that anything we do to deepen our connections with others and increase our sense of community will also improve our health.  When we "open our hearts" mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, we literally open our physical hearts as well, and this is an incredible gift we can give both ourselves and those around us.