Mind Your Heart

This Valentine’s Day, savor a bite of good chocolate, linger over a meal with a loved one, close your eyes and breathe in the scent of those flowers, or focus on the beauty of your surroundings as you take a peaceful nature walk. These activities are examples of ways you can practice mindfulness. Simply defined, mindfulness means paying attention to your thoughts, feelings, and/or surroundings. It can be simple (such as chewing your food slowly and really savoring the taste and feel of it in your mouth) or take more time to master (like the practice of mindfulness meditation). You can do it on your own (like taking slow, deep breaths with your eyes closed), with the guidance of an app or website, or with a trained professional (as with mindfulness-based stress reduction).

These various ways of practicing mindfulness are being studied as tools to support health—including heart health.

Reduce Stress. Stress can be bad for your heart. How people react to stressful situations varies, but stress—especially long-term (chronic) stress—can negatively impact your psychological wellbeing, contributing to negative mental health conditions including burnout, depression, anger, pessimism, dissatisfaction with life, and anxiety. These conditions, in turn, are associated with health problems like increased blood pressure, irregular heart rate or rhythm, and inflammation. Although we do not thoroughly understand how stress contributes to heart disease and stroke, we know that negative psychological and mental health is associated with higher risk of these conditions, while positive psychological health is associated with a lower risk.

Mindfulness may be helpful in relieving stress. According to American Psychological Association, mindfulness is used in several therapeutic interventions, including mindfulness-based cognitive behavior therapy, mindfulness meditation, and mindfulness-based stress reduction. A recent randomized clinical trial even found mindfulness-based stress reduction to be as effective as antidepressant medication for treating anxiety disorders in some people.

Lose Weight. Having overweight or obesity increases risk for high blood pressure, tends to raise blood levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol and triglycerides and lower HDL (good) cholesterol levels, and increases risk for type 2 diabetes and sleep apnea, all of which raise risk for heart attack and stroke.

Eating quickly has been associated with excess weight gain, possibly because it delays feelings of fullness and satisfaction, which increases risk of taking in more calories than you need. Participants in several studies reported feeling fuller after eating a meal slowly compared to eating it quickly. A key strategy for eating more slowly is to eat mindfully. This means sitting down in a designated area, setting aside any distractions, and focusing on the experience of eating. Truly savor your food and pay attention to your body’s hunger/fullness signals.

Common tips for eating mindfully include coming to the table hungry (but not ravenous); chewing your food thoroughly; and letting go of the idea that you must clean your plate. Randomized controlled trials have found mindful eating strategies can result in significant weight loss compared with no intervention. In one study, a four-session program teaching mindfulness and prolonged chewing not only reduced calorie intake, but also led to less cravings and a reduction in emotional eating. Weight loss in the intervention group was maintained after a four-week follow-up.

Change Behavior. Like overeating, behaviors such as tobacco smoking and excessive alcohol use are bad for heart (and overall) health. Changing behaviors like these is difficult. Learning to be mindful can be a useful tool. It has been suggested that learning to observe thoughts, emotions, and experiences in the present moment without judging or reacting to them can help people avoid automatic responses and break habits.

What to Do. There is no harm in learning to be more mindful, and there may be benefits. When it comes to heart health, larger clinical trials examining standardized mindfulness interventions need to be carried out to provide a clearer picture of what to do, how often to do it, and how much it may help. But whether your goal is to manage stress, lose weight, change behavior, or simply be kinder to yourself and learn to find joy in the moment, give mindfulness a try!