So you are a smoker and as such at a higher risk for heart disease. There are, however, confounding risks that could significantly INCREASE your risk and you should be aware of one that is overlooked. More and more work suggests that emotions play a much bigger role than most conventional physicians appreciate. Perhaps you have lost your home in the sub prime debacle or a loved one in Iraq. Blood vessels change in the heart dramatically as does the amount of cholesterol sometimes weeks- even months after you have experienced the trauma. These changes can remain if the emotional event remains and you are not able to cope. There is an answer and that is learning how to "let go". Conventional doctors pay this risk factor very little attention. One reason is that they have little time to be educators. Reimbursement is set up by insurance companies so that the physician must churn patients in and out of the office in order to make a buck. Medical schools receive much of their research dollars from pharmaceutical companies. So their curriculum (to train doctors) is drug based to accommodate the rapid turn over of patients in an office. Physicians develop most of their habits in medical school and are poorly trained in the diagnosis and treatment of emotional risk factors for cardiovascular disease. This applies even more so to smokers for whom they have little patience and less interest.

So what do you do?

Consider:

1. Church groups and prayer ( Read Healing Words by Larry Dossey, MD)
2. Psychotherapy if the emotional hurt is severe
3. Meditation (There are CD’s available like the ones from Andrew Weil, MD)
4. Guided visual imaging (Martin Rossman, MD has some wonderful CD’s)
5. Music (Try restful stuff like the classics OR Sinatra, Nat King Cole, etc.By the way this is no matter your age. The cadence, volume, etc. of music has a DIRECT effect on your heart.)

One last thing, try DARK chocolate (70% cacao or greater). It soothes the soul and dilates blood vessels to the heart and brain.

(As always discuss this with your health care provider.)