The Healthy Heart Blog | Finding tools for a healthy heart!!!

This site has been stagnant for some time now…for those who asked…I am alive and well. It was really important that I get work done at my job. Pest control is sometimes very demanding!

We have managed to pay down some debt, eliminate a hospital bill, and it feels good to be on the road to recovery in my health and financial life. I have to remember not to try to get it all done in one day, I must remember to do something every day toward my goal.

Along the way I received a recipe for recovering in a healthy way. Food for the soul if you will:

First is to take one day at a time. All we have is right now….the next minute..hour..day or any time span will be taken care of if we do this day what is needed to build a foundation for the next time span. All we are given is this day.

Second see beauty every day. It can be a flower, a bird, a smile or any other thing that is beautiful to us. Some days I need to really look to find something beautiful…but I look for something each day.

Third we need to hear something beautiful each day. The laughter of a child, a song, the wind in the trees…any sound that we believe is beautiful.Some days I must listen to hear a beautiful sound, but it is up to me to listen.

There are four more things to do, I will save them for next time…let us concentrate on these and see and hear the difference.

Mondays aren’t easy for anyone, but for people with heart problems, they can be downright dangerous. Studies have shown that workers’ blood pressure is higher on Mondays than any other day of the week, which may be why British Medical Journal reported a 20% spike in heart attacks on Mondays.

I do not stay in bed on Mopndays, I simply am aware of the added stress and do what I need to do to reduce the impact of Monday.

First I plan for Monday on Sunday, I realize the plan is mine and accept the fact that others may have ideas to change Monday’s plan, and I make certain that my relaxation aides are with me on Monday.

By relaxation aid, I am referencing my music CDs, my positive quotes book, and other items I often use to reduce stress.

These are some ideas I hope will help you and yours to have a great Monday at least 52 times each year. 

Because my doctor told me to be active, I still work …(I might add that my banker thought it a good idea too). My idea was to get away from work, be very active in healthy activities at the local gym, or wellness center, and make my health a real priority. I was caught up in this dream that I would become a fitness guru and help the whole world be fit and healthy…recieve some great prize for my contribution to the world, and live happy, healthy, and rich…

That did not…and is not working…so I moved to plan B…

I work in a job with moderate physical requirements, I have a system of money management, I go to work every day, and take my lunch and snacks with me.

My wife and I have learned that taking our lunch can save around $7.00 per day….$35.00 dollars per week , we save about $1,785.00 per year (allowing for one week vacation) per person. In our case, we save enough to pay down our debt by a considerable amount. What would an extra $148.75 per month do to our house note for instance…..how many years payments would we save, and how much of the interest would we save over the term of the note? By using a mortgage calculator I found on Dave Ramsey’s web site I learned the answers to those questions….We save $35,261.75 interest and pay 9 years and 3 months less time. Not a bad payoff for simply taking our lunch!

We want to give some of our lunch ideas to you and help others to save money, be healthy, and recover from whatever illness may be troubling  in a physical and financial way.

Here is one of the items I enjoy taking in my lunch bag. 

Ingredients: 1 bag of mixed vegetables (frozen), low fat italion or vinegarette salad dressing, low sodium seasoning of choice

Prepare the mixed vegetables as directed on the bag (or box), season to taste, add the salad dressing of choice, place in a container (suitable for your lunch box), place in the fridge and chill. Let the vegatables stand for12 to 24 hours (allowing the spices and dressing to blend with the veggies). We can share this lunch item, it makes enough for the two of us, in some cases for more than one day.

Quick–easy– and not so expensive! Pack it in your lunch and enjoy!

Most of us with major heart health issues are placed on a regular routine of diet, exercise, and medicine, having a routine helps me to be less stressed. So why not a routine with money? The fact of unexpected expense is a reality I have faced in the past, and probably will again!

I did not plan on being in the emergency room, hospitalized, and diagnosed with an ailment that would change my entire life, drain me in every way, and place me in a mental state of  unorganized chaos like nothing had before. I also did not know of, or plan for the life changes we would have to make as a family. What if I had planned for the extra expenses? Less Stress!

We cannot plan for specific unexpected events, however, we can plan for them in general.  My wife and I are folks who trust experience rather than book smart—(just old fashioned that way I suppose). We were looking for a system to manage our money and all kinds of software is available…then we found a person with a plan…we soon learned that we needed a plan —not software!

Our discovery was by the way of radio, talk radio at that! A gentleman by the name of Dave Ramsey was talking to people on the radio and helping them with financial problems left and right..it was amazing to hear the callers with the same types of problems we had. His answers made sense so we started the process on our own, one by one we are triming our debt list and becomming closer to DEBT FREE every day. He has a website, sells products, and shares his money management expertise,  based on experience he has had….that sold us on the system.

After we got a few bills paid we invested in his software…it compliments and helps track the debts, spending and savings in an organized manner, but, we started with what we had and worked up to more later…that is part of his system. It is a bit “old school” I know, but it works!

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My wife and I are partners in all that we do…not that we always agree, we simply “discuss” until a decision is made. So, after some conversation… the first thing apparent was that we needed to get the financial picture in front of us clearly and honestly.

The first step was to create a spread sheet to track the income and outflow of our money. We have MS Office, so we used the program provided in that suite and designed a sheet to fit our needs. There are several different programs designed to do this task, however, when spending is on hold….use what is at hand.

Even though the picture was not pleasant, we needed to see our picture clearly and accurately. We put all of our debts, monthly payments, and assets on the spread sheet, and then we tracked our spending.

After a month of recording every thing we purchased (Imean everything), we put our monthly spendings in categories and then stareted a budget.

We now have a view of the way we spent, how we were spending at the time of our financial inventory, and how we wanted to spend in the future.

All of this led us to a new methof of spending, tracking expense,and started our journey to financial stability.

People who have PTSD are at high risk to develop other mental health problems, such as depression and substance use disorders. PTSD is often associated with a number of physical health problems as well.A recent study of Vietnam veterans found that those who had PTSD were at considerably greater risk for premature death from heart disease, as compared to those veterans without PTSD. You can read more about this study here.

People with PTSD experience heightened levels of stress which can have a negative impact on the heart. In addition, PTSD has been found to be connected to obesity and unhealthy behaviors, such as smoking, which may also contribute to heart disease.

Of course, having PTSD does not necessarily mean that you will definitely have heart disease. Heart disease is preventable. If you have PTSD (and even if you don’t), it is important to take steps to improve your health by establishing a healthier lifestyle. A healthy diet, exercise, and eliminating bad habits (for example, stopping smoking) may not only improve your health, but also your mood. Behavioral activation is one technique that provides an easy way to increase the level of activity in your life, help you meet your goals, and can reduce PTSD symptoms.

Managing Chronic Heart Failure
Chronic heart failure (CHF) results in symptoms such as fatigue and decreased ability to exercise that often leads to an increasingly sedentary lifestyle and a deterioration of muscle function. Until recently, the prescription for patients with CHF was rest and minimization of physical exertion. In another NRI study, Eileen Collins, PhD, RN, at the Edward Hines, Jr. VA Hospital, investigated whether veterans with moderate to severe CHF, who completed a 12-week individualized program of cardiopulmonary training, would have better quality of life and aerobic fitness. Findings from this study indicate that a moderately high intensity exercise training program for patients with moderate to severe heart failure significantly improved perceptions of physical function. Further, oxygen intake in the exercise group was significantly better, indicating a better level of physical fitness.

Eliminating extraneous confounding factors in a study of Vietnam vets with PTSD reveals their risk of heart disease long after that war ended.

PTSD was linked to an increased risk of dying relatively young of heart disease among U.S. Army Vietnam War-era veterans—especially among those stationed in Vietnam, according to a 15-year prospective study.

The study was based on data collected in 1985 and 1986 from a sample of 4,328 men who served in the U.S. Army from 1965 to 1971. Included in the sample were 2,409 individuals who were sent to Vietnam. All study participants completed a telephone questionnaire, and a random subsample was given extensive physical examinations at baseline.

To ensure the study’s validity, the researchers sought to eliminate extraneous, confounding factors by excluding from analysis those veterans who had heart disease at the study’s start, reported Joseph Boscarino, Ph.D., M.P.H., senior investigator at the Henry Hood Center for Health Research at the Geisinger Clinic in Danville, Pa.

Veterans in the subsample were given electrocardiograms, Boscarino explained in an interview. Blood-pressure readings and cardiovascular-medication use were used to screen out borderline heart disease cases. The researchers also controlled for family history of heart disease, smoking, obesity, and diabetes.

About 10 percent of veterans who served in Vietnam (regardless of their nominal combat status) and 3 percent of those who were in the Army but served elsewhere were diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in 1985. All veterans were assessed for PTSD diagnostic and symptom status by two scales, one based on DSM-III criteria (D-PTSD) and another developed by Terence Keane, Ph.D., and based on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (K-PTSD).

By the completion of follow-up in 2000, 52 of the veterans in the total sample had died of a heart attack, chronic ischemic heart disease, atherosclerotic disease, hypertensive heart disease, or heart failure.

“[H]aving a diagnosis of PTSD at baseline, such as having a positive D-PTSD case definition, doubled the risk of death from early onset heart disease at follow-up,” wrote Boscarino in an article in the July Psychosomatic Medicine. “[I]n addition to the short-term psychological consequences previously reported among returning war-fighters, for some we can expect longer-term stress injuries to manifest as clinical disease decades after exposure.”

He also analyzed outcomes by symptom levels as well as by diagnostic case definition, then adjusted results for duty location, age, smoking, depression, and other factors.

Among all veterans, the association between PTSD and heart disease mortality was no longer statistically significant for those who met the case definition, but remained so for those with PTSD symptoms. However, among veterans who served in Vietnam, the statistically significant link between death from heart disease and PTSD remained even after adjustment for lifetime depression, diabetes, and combat exposure.

The study showed a dose-response pattern, as well. “[A] 5-point increase on either the D-PTSD or the K-PTSD scale … resulted in a 20 percent increase in future heart disease mortality,” wrote Boscarino.

There are biologically plausible mechanisms to connect PTSD to heart disease, ranging from the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal or sympathetic-adrenal-medullary axes to health behaviors such as overeating or drinking alcohol, said Boscarino. Alternatively, some common genetic pathway might underlie a predisposition to both PTSD and heart disease.

The study points to the long-term outcomes of PTSD but began at least a decade after American troops returned from Vietnam, said Boscarino. Current investigations of PTSD and its effects resulting from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan should benefit from better design and from being able to look at soldiers before, during, and after their exposure to combat.

“The current scale of research, screening, and treatment seems impressive to me,” he told Psychiatric News. “There is better coordination between the Department of Defense and the VA now, and they are putting a lot of funding into basic science, clinical studies, and epidemiology.”

An unrelated study, based on the 2001 National Survey of Veterans and published in the September Military Medicine, found that veterans under age 60 who served in Vietnam had worse self-reported health and higher rates of stroke than those who served elsewhere during that time. Vietnam veterans older than 60 had poor self-rated health and a higher risk for cancer than their peers.

Authors of both reports suggested that studies like these can be used to encourage treatment among the newest veterans and to plan for treatment services as they age.

The first thing that was to happen for us monetarily….lots of expense!!! I say for us because it woke us up to the fact that we were entering a new position of finance in our lives.

What about my job, would I loose it? What about the house payment, where is that comming  from if I can’t work for a year? Did I have a life insurance policy big enough for the family if my unhealthy heart quits working?

These are the questions I either did not ask, or answered wrong!  I honestly thought I had time to make adjustments. My health could never fail, I was active, happy, and appeared healthy. In the next few posts we sill attempt to help others ask themselves the questions we forgot to ask, or have the correct answers for the questions we got wrong.

Begins with McCain - Palin!!!!!

This team will bring our nation to a leadership role in the world again.

By keepingthe money in the hands of the citizens, providing incentives to businesses to create jobs and grow, and by building a military force of unmatched strength, our nation can return to the admired world leader it once was.