Can you heal your heart through social connections?

When it comes to healing the heart, people focus on eating the right foods and engaging in cardiovascular exercises.

But, there is more to healing the heart, than just food and exercise.

The heart is not just a physical organ beating inside your body. It’s also our emotional regulator and the true motivator for the human spirit.

Here’s an example of what supporting the deeper aspects of your beautiful heart looks like.

Below is an old picture of me teaching a cooking class inside my tiny apartment on the Upper East Side in New York City. In the audience, every month without fail, was my elderly neighbor Connie. You can see her sitting on the couch in her purple shirt and purple pants.

We lived across the hall from each other for 26 years. Connie didn’t have close family in New York, and she didn’t have a husband or children, but what she did have was community connection.

Every month she looked forward to connecting with me and the students in the cooking class, enjoying a community meal, and sharing life experiences.

Beyond nourishing her body with delicious organic food, she was strengthening her heart and cardiovascular system with social connections.

“Individual and societal relationships are key determinants of health and wellbeing, and high social cohesion is documented to have a strong protective effect on cardiovascular health. Conversely, poor social bonds and weak social networks predict poor cardiovascular health.” -1 

 The reason this occurs is due to the hormone Oxytocin, that is produced when you are engaged with a healthy and loving community. Oxytocin plays a crucial role in connection by promoting feelings of trust, empathy, and social bonding.

Oxytocin is a cardiovascular hormone that naturally lowers blood pressure, improves cardiac function and regenerates heart cells.

“Researchers show for the first time that the neurohormone oxytocin has a previously unsuspected function in human cell cultures: it stimulates mature cells in the epicardium of the heart to become stem-like cells, which can replace heart cells lost after damage.” -2

Wow! Oxytocin “can replace heart cells lost after damage.” That’s one powerful hormone!

The natural release of oxytocin when you are bonding and connecting socially is vital to the health of your heart – and you can’t get that from a bowl of blueberries, or by running on the treadmill.

To support heart health, it’s imperative that we connect with other people.

My neighbor Connie eventually passed away. But, she didn’t die of heart disease, as one out of three people in the United States does. She died peacefully, in her sleep, at 90 years old.

Do your heart a favor and take a lesson from Connie. Nourish yourself deeply and connect socially with a community you love.

Lack of connection is unhealthy. It causes the emotional heart to grow malnourished, and that can kill the spirit and stop the heart from functioning, even if you are exercising and eating the best food.

I know how important social connection is and I’m grateful that I have created, and continue to nourish, strong bonds within a healthy like-minded community that I love.

If you want to learn more, connect with my Health is Wealth Community. It’s good for your health, and even better… it’s good for your heart.

 

1 – https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8588761/

2 – Frontiers in Cell Development and Biology