{"id":6651,"date":"2017-01-31T16:27:55","date_gmt":"2017-02-01T00:27:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeandhealth.wordifysites.com\/?p=6651"},"modified":"2023-02-14T07:42:44","modified_gmt":"2023-02-14T15:42:44","slug":"3-tips-to-make-you-and-your-heart-happy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/mindfulness\/3-tips-to-make-you-and-your-heart-happy\/166651.html","title":{"rendered":"3 Tips to Make You (And Your Heart) Happy"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s February and at this point, many of you are probably growing a little tired of talking about diet, exercise, and how you\u2019re not<\/em> keeping your New Year\u2019s resolutions. Am I right?<\/p>\n

No worries, this time we\u2019re going to discuss a different way to get healthy\u2014by being happy. Specifically, how happiness affects the health of your heart. (It\u2019s February, after all.)<\/p>\n

Be kind.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

We\u2019re human. We all get angry. But did you know that when you become angry, you acutely increase your risk of heart attack by 200-300%? A large study looked at multiple cardiac risk factors; after taking anger into account, no other factor made an immediate difference. The effect of anger also persisted for about one hour after the initial blow up.<\/p>\n

How many of you are on social media? Psychological Science<\/em> magazine recently published a study done by the University of Pennsylvania. The study tracked negative emotions on Twitter, and overlaid that pattern with a death rate map from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). What they found was that the more negative tweets that came from a certain country, the higher the death rate. So being unkind\u2014even via the Internet\u2014can come back to hurt you.<\/p>\n

Be thankful.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Dr. Paul Mills at the University of California, San Diego, recently showed that a spirit of thankfulness is good for your health. Grateful people were shown to have less depression, less anxiety, and better sleep. More surprisingly, however, is that they also found out that thankful people also had lower levels of inflammatory markers and better overall heart health!<\/p>\n

To make this practical to you, instead of feeling burdened by the thought of \u201cI have to do this,<\/em>\u201d think \u201cthank God that I can still do this!<\/em>\u201d Researchers have also recommended keeping a gratitude journal, where you can write down the things that you\u2019re thankful for.<\/p>\n

Forgive.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

We\u2019re all sinners. We\u2019ve all been hurt, but we\u2019ve also hurt others, so forgiveness applies to everyone.<\/p>\n

Researchers from Florida State University demonstrated that people who actively forgave others had lower heart rates, lower blood pressures, and better heart function.<\/p>\n

Another study directly compared bitter women to those who were forgiving. They found opposite effects in their sympathetic tone, heart rate, blood pressure, and arterial stiffness. Those who forgave also had much better cardiovascular numbers than their angry counterparts.<\/p>\n

So, we all just need to\u2026let it go (cue Frozen<\/em> soundtrack).<\/p>\n

Why is this important?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

While these ideas may seem easier than uprooting your diet or starting a vigorous new exercise regimen, they\u2019re actually more difficult. Kindness, thankfulness, and a spirit of forgiveness all represent a change in your habits, a change in your thought process, and essentially, a change of heart.<\/p>\n

Luckily, we serve the ultimate heart surgeon. Claim His promise to you:<\/p>\n

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. \u2013 Ezekiel 36:26<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s February and at this point, many of you are probably growing a little tired of talking about diet, exercise, and how you\u2019re not keeping your New Year\u2019s resolutions. Am I right? No worries, this time we\u2019re going to discuss a different way to get healthy\u2014by being happy. Specifically, how happiness affects the health of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":6652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10,2,561,5,8],"tags":[200,218,96,182,95],"thb-sponsors":[],"yst_prominent_words":[967,741,779,2576,679,919,699,955,765],"class_list":["post-6651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-emotional-health","category-healthy-habits","category-lifestyle","category-mindfulness","category-relationships-community","category-spiritual-health","tag-emotional-health-2","tag-healthy-habits","tag-mental-health","tag-mind-body-spirit","tag-spirituality-2","post_format-post-format-image"],"acf":[],"views":906,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6651"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6656,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6651\/revisions\/6656"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6651"},{"taxonomy":"thb-sponsors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thb-sponsors?post=6651"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=6651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}