{"id":209,"date":"2017-12-20T00:29:45","date_gmt":"2017-12-20T00:29:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/healing-health-wellness\/?p=209"},"modified":"2019-09-12T17:45:59","modified_gmt":"2019-09-12T17:45:59","slug":"the-season-of-the-heart-heartbreak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/healing-health-wellness\/2017\/12\/the-season-of-the-heart-heartbreak\/","title":{"rendered":"The Season of the Heart & Heartbreak"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nClick here<\/a> to listen to the full blog in 7 minutes.<\/p>\n

Although I\u2019ve been talking a lot about gratitude, I\u2019ve also been acknowledging that the holidays can be triggering times for many.\u00a0 According to an article in Integrative Practitioner<\/a>, although many may be of Yuletide cheer, multiple studies have found an increase in heart attacks during the winter months! It states:<\/p>\n

\u2026<\/em>during a 12 year period, there were consistently more deaths from ischemic heart disease during the winter months than the summer months. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAh ha!\u201d you might say. \u201cThe cold weather is the culprit.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

Alas, no. This research group reported that about a third more deaths from ischemic heart attacks were recorded in December and January than\u00a0June through September in Los Angeles County, California. Palm trees, not pine trees, are decorated for Christmas in the Los Angeles winter and, although colder than the summer, are still mild compared with other climates\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Stress induces over-reactivity, on both the body and the mind. Holidays are harbingers of excitement. Emotional excitement is, well, exciting. A heightened sensation of excitement could be simply too much for some people to bear. In 2005, the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and its Heart Institute published a <\/em>study<\/a> in The New England Journal of Medicine,\u00a0which found that some people may respond to sudden, overwhelming emotional stress by releasing large amounts of catecholamines\u2014notably adrenalin and noradrenalin\u2014into the bloodstream, along with their breakdown products and small proteins produced by an excited nervous system. These chemicals can be temporarily toxic to the heart, effectively stunning the muscle and producing symptoms similar to a heart attack, including chest pain, fluid in the lungs, shortness of breath, and heart failure\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve discussed \u201cBroken Heart Syndrome<\/a>,\u201d or Takotsubo cardiomyopathy awhile back. The mechanism is very different than typical heart attacks, yet the symptomology is indistinguishable from a heart attack related to coronary blockages or other heart-related dysfunctions.<\/p>\n

According to Harvard<\/a>, the following classify this type of cardiovascular event:<\/p>\n