STEPHEN SINATR A, MD

Health Revelations

EARTH Heaven

and

from

The Miracle of

HUMAN CONNECTION

5

When Tommy Rosa was in Heaven, his spirit guide explained how all of us are connected

through divine love, and that human connection is vital to our health:

You are called to love each other, because each life is valuable and cherished by God.

Love is the highest form of connection. Everything that God has ever made is con-

nected through Divine Unconditional Love. It is this love that enables you to love your-

self and one another. Only by pulling each other closer and opening your hearts can

you ensure complete well-being for yourself and the world in which you live. When

you increase love, caring, and connection in your life, you also increase the health, joy,

and meaning in your life—and this can spread to others.

Dr. Sinatra has also learned through his 40 years of practicing medicine that the

need for connection lies at the very heart of human existence. Our ability to con-

nect with ourselves and others is central to what makes us ill and what makes us healthy,

what brings us sadness and what brings us joy, what makes us hurt and what helps

us heal.

Here are a few thoughts from Dr. Sinatra for being more connected in life.

5INTIMACY AND HEART DISEASE—

AN OVERLOOKED RISK FACTOR

The list of conventional risk factors for cardio-vascular disease does not include loss or lack of intimacy. You’ll see the usual risk factors that research has repeatedly examined and the media reports on: older age, unfavorable family history, poor diet, elevated cholester-ol and blood fats, obesity, sedentary lifestyle, diabetes, high blood pressure, cigarette smok-ing, lack of exercise, and abnormal levels of dozens of different biochemicals in the body. 

You won’t see anything about “feeling states,” the emotions that lie outside the realm of hard science. You can’t really measure such things.

But as a cardiologist who studied psycho-therapy with great teachers, I learned to look for emotional issues among my patients and determine whether they might play a role in the path to illness. I wrote a whole book about these very real issues (Heartbreak and Heart Disease) because I encountered them so often in my practice.

It’s a major mistake to ignore the impact of emotions on the body. Stress is a major player in inflammation and disease, including cardiovascular disease. Studies suggest that stress-related complaints account for between

60 and 90 percent of visits to primary care physicians.

Stress is commonly thought of as explosive or seething reactions to life’s dilemmas, woes, challenges, and inconveniences. Stress can kill. Stress can also include something less obvious. To be sure, there is the great stress involved in the loss of a loved one, a divorce, a loss of a job. That’s an acute kind of stress. There are also chronic types of stress that include an enduring lack or loss of love and intimacy in one’s life. Such a deficiency may or may not lead to depression, which is by itself a distinctly significant risk factor.

Years ago, I was deeply impressed by the research of a Russian gerontologist (an expert on the physical and psychological effects of aging) who studied longevity. He examined 20,000 healthy people aged 80 and above, and reported the key ingredients he discov-ered most of them had in common. One was good relationships—rich in love, inti-macy, and support. The other was physical connectedness to a partner meant anything from intercourse to cuddling and kissing, and it was the holding and the intimacy that mattered the most to them.

Now, you can’t buy intimacy at a store, and relationships take time and work to maintain. But here are some practical steps to consider that may help fill the void:

● Volunteer your time for a cause you be-lieve in.

● Engage more with community or reli-gious affiliations.

● Get social. Invite others to be with you if you are not invited by others.

● Pursue activities that will get you involved with others and help take your mind and theirs off loss or loneliness.

● Consider getting a pet if you don’t have one. A pet offers unconditional love to the withdrawn person, the lonely person, or the grief-stricken person.

I hope you are not someone experiencing lack of intimacy in your life. But maybe you know somebody who is. Love and intimacy cannot “cure” or prevent cardiovascular problems alone, but they can sure make a big difference and even provide an emotional springboard for making heart-healthy life-style changes. The combination is powerful.

5A HUG: POWERFUL MEDICINE?

Nobody knows when the first human hug took place, but we pretty much know when the first hug occurs in life: a newborn laying and nursing in the arms of its mother.

What a Hug Really Means!

To hug: from the Saxon and Teutonic words “hog” or “hagen,” meaning “to be tender of, to embrace.”

We now know that if hugging continues throughout childhood and throughout life, both the giver and the recipient can receive many benefits. It’s an effective feature of affectionate communication in our close relationships. We just don’t outgrow the pos-itive response to warm physical contact, as research indicates.  

Without getting into the variables of hug-ging, here are a few findings on what hugs can do for your health.

● Frequent hugs between spouses/partners are associated with lower blood pressure, heart rate, and a higher level of oxytocin in premenopausal women. Oxytocin is a fascinating pituitary hormone that reduces pain and increases calmness. It is released during hugging, touching, and orgasm in both sexes. In the brain, it is thought to be involved in the formation of trust between people and generosity — a bonding hormone. In women, it is released in large amounts during labor, and after stimulation of the nipples, facilitates birth and breastfeeding, respectively.

● In a study, among 400 participants who were infected with an upper respiratory virus that caused the common cold, indi-viduals with greater social support expe-rienced less severe symptoms of illness. About a third of the protective effect was attributed to hugging. “This suggests that being hugged by a trusted person may act as an effective means of conveying support and that increasing the frequency

of hugs might be an effective means of reducing the deleterious effects of stress,” says psychologist Sheldon Cohen, PhD, of Carnegie Mellon University. “The apparent protective effect of hugs may be attributable to the physical contact itself or to hugging being a behavioral indicator of support and intimacy. Either way, those who receive more hugs are somewhat more protected from infection.”

● According to the University of Arizona’s Kory Floyd, PhD, an expert on affection-ate communication, there are multiple reasons to be more physically affection-ate in your close relationships. He offers the following reasons: It’s a predictor of marital love and higher relationship satis-faction; it makes you appear more trust-worthy; it reduces stress hormones; and it puts you in a better mood. 

● Hugging can help reduce stress, fear, and anxiety and can even improve memory performance, says neurophysiologist Jürgen Sandkühler, MD, head of the Centre for Brain Research at the Medical University of Vienna. However, he adds, “The positive effect only occurs if the people trust each other, if the associated feelings are present mutually. If people do not know each other, or if the hug is not desired by both parties, its effects are lost. This can lead to pure stress because our normal distance-keeping behavior is disregarded. In these situations, we secrete the stress hormone cortisol.”

Obviously, a modicum of discretion is necessary when initiating hugs. But, from a therapeutic standpoint, hugs are truly good medicine when dispensed among friends, loved ones, and spouses. Contact is wonder-ful, and perhaps even more so in our com-puterized, digitalized, electronic age. Unfor-tunately, today many people don’t even look at each other because their eyes are constantly fixated on some screen.

I am a big hugger myself and I always

recommend to my patients that they hug more often. It is good therapy for the heart and soul.

It is also very important to hug, if possible, and affectionately touch or stroke loved ones who are terminally ill or who may be dying. Such contact intimately transfers love.

January 21 is celebrated by people around the world as an “international hugging day” to promote affection. My suggestion is that you don’t wait until January 21.

Some material adapted from Health Revelations from Heaven and Earth © 2015 by Tommy Rosa and Stephen Sinatra, MD; additional material adapted from HeartMDInstitute.com © Heart MD Institute.