Meditation For Heart Health

By Tracy Soltesz, LAc, MAc

Kunlun Mountain Acupuncture, Inc.

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Meditation For Heart Health

It could be said that the heart is the most important organ of the body. Simply put, without it, we die. Civilizations throughout history have recognized the importance of the heart, attributing qualities to it beyond the physiological functions we currently associate with it. In many societies, the heart is the center of emotions, with stories like Cupid where the heart rules over love. In the 1800s, “broken heart” was a standard cause of death assigned by medical examiners.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the heart is said to hold the powers of the mind and thought processing. When a patient reports to me trouble with memory retention, staying asleep, or anxiety, a Chinese medical practitioner may diagnose them as “heart Qi deficient”.

Proper diet and vigorous exercise improves cardiovascular health by lowering blood pressure and cholesterol levels, thus reducing the risk of heart attack. Did you know that slow, simple exercises such as meditation, tai chi and yoga can be affective at accomplishing these same goals?

Chinese medicine expert Lonny Jarrett printed an article, Curing Hypertension, in which he describes how he used meditation and herbal therapies to cure himself of essential hypertension over five years ago.

“My primary care physician wanted to put me on meds and said I'd be on them forever,” he writes. Mr. Jarrett refused the medications, opting instead to make life changes and take herbal therapy. But it wasn't until a breakthrough in meditation that he realized he needed to “start backing away from my intensity of engagement with my own mind.” He now meditates at least an hour every day, and teaches his patients to do the same, explaining that herbs and medications only buy time until a patient is ready to make deeper changes in terms of learning to slow the mind.

While this story is anecdotal, scientific studies confirm such results. A 2007 study conducted by American Association of Naturopathic Physicians compared the use of natural interventions like yoga and meditation versus placebo or conventional treatment options. The clinically significant study confirmed that using natural intervention alone or in conjunction with conventional treatment both successfully lowered blood pressure.

Yoga and meditation both have a myriad of other benefits in addition to cardiovascular results. If you are searching for ways to keep your heart healthy, start a new routine that incorporates these easy movement exercises.