You can guard your heart, too, by avoiding
obesity and, if now over- weight, by sensible reducing. If you are overweight,
your heart has to work harder routinely, day in and day out, minute after
minute. Take your heart seriously-but don't worry about it. If this sounds
contradictory, it is really not. Fear can injure the heart; and too many people
are more afraid ~f heart trouble than of anything else. Because of their fear
and anxiety, they may actually be contributing to the development of heart
trouble. Not worrying about your heart simply means this: Have your heart
examined at regular intervals by your physician.
If he says your heart is sound, get your
mind off it and on to other advice he may have for you on proper nutrition and
exercise. We should like to emphasize very strongly here that only a physician
can tell whether or not there is really anything wrong with the heart. Pounding
of the heart (palpitation) can be alarming, but it is more likely to be caused
by nervousness than by a serious organic condition. When your heart suddenly
seems to "flop over" in your chest, you may be frightened, but
needlessly, for the phenomenon often is due to nothing more than the fact that
you have been smoking too many cigarettes or drinking too much coffee. Between
medical checkups, you can help yourself and your physician keep your heart in
good shape by avoidance of excessive smoking.
If
you must smoke (see the chapter on that subject), cut down as much as possible
or, preferably, switch to a pipe or mild cigar. Good diet, with regular spacing
of relatively small meals, helps the heart to work at its best, and, as noted
in the chapter on nutrition, there is evidence that sound diet may well reduce
the likelihood of clogging of the arteries feeding the heart. Good diet also
can reduce the likelihood of arterial damage elsewhere in the body, helping to
maintain the integrity of the whole circulatory system. Keep your work and
social life under reasonable control so that you are not chronically fatigued.
If you feel tense and "driven" in our competitive world, talk to your
physician. He may have advice that will be helpful; he may suggest little
patterns of physical activity to be used at particularly tense moments to
reduce the tension; if necessary, he may prescribe medication that may help
tide you over a tense period; he may, if advisable, have you talk with a
psychotherapist. You may be able, by any or all of these measures, to reduce
nervous tension to the point where you can avoid trouble with your heart in
later life.
