New Delhi: As his number of angioplasties has reached 10,000 marks, Dr Viveka Kumar, a renowned interventional cardiologist, should be mighty happy if increasing number of heart procedures is a laurel to rest on. But he is not, because he worries about hearts of Indian population in general which are far from happy.
So, when Dr Viveka got a request from an eminent health NGO Sukhi Sansar to speak on the theme – Heart, Happiness and Holistic Health, he happily accepted it. On September 17, Dr Viveka spoke at length to underline that happiness is ‘sine qua non’ of heart health. Sukhi Sansar observed the birth day PM Modi (September 17) as #WorldHolisticHealthDay.
Dr Viveka, Director, Cath Labs, Senior consultant, Electrophysiology, Max Super Speciality, Saket said in no uncertain terms that happiness and heart health are inseparably bound up together. He underlined holistic health as the best protection for heart, He said, ‘If you are happy, there would not be heart attack, if you are practising holistic health, there would not be heart attack, happiness and heart are inalienable issues. Heart beats with happiness.’
See what anger can do to your heart. Citing a famous study and advising to control negative emotions, Dr Viveka said, ‘Type A personality meaning an Angry type personality is a big risk factor. Heart Patients, 1623 in number, were tracked over a period of 5 and half years. They were all asked: what happened two hours before heart attack. All of them said they were angry. Studies have shown anger increases the risk of heart attack by 230 %.’ He exemplified an executive as A type personality, saying they remain under stress for pretty long time and often boils over. It is huge risk for an executive’s heart.
Dr Viveka portrayed stress and related emotions as the villain of the piece both in precipitating heart mishaps and making people heart diseased. He said a number of studies have shown anxiety and stress are conditions which associate with heart attack. Depression doubles the risk of heart attack. He said due to stress cardiovascular diseases are so common in India which has become the world capital of cardiovascular diseases. He described STRESS as an acronym- S for Sorrow, T for Trouble, R for reproach, E for End, S for slowly and S for Suicide.
He said long term effect of stress are increase heart rate, increase blood pressure, cholesterol level going up, increased level of triglyceride, fat deposition around waist, increased risk of heart attack and increased risk of cardiac arrhythmias. He said holistic health is the best way to keep heart hunky dory.
He added, ‘holistic health is not a recent thinking. When Medical College in BHU started in 1971, there was a degree holistic medicine graduate but thanks to tiff with modern medicine apologists, this degree was kept in abeyance. Dr Viveka talked about his teacher in medicine who would often say look at patient as a whole, not through a hole. Tubular vision is not a right way to evaluate a patient. He recommended yoga, transcendental meditation and repetitive prayers as effective ways of keeping stress at bay.
Dr Sushrut Almast , a radiologist by training, is a great champion of Holistic health and as founder of Sukhi Sansar is doing utmost to promote it. He left his practice as a radiologist for this and is a dyed in wool fan of PM Modi. Dr Viveka rounded of his speech by a mantra of his own: ‘God give us Serenity to accept things, Courage to change things I can and Wisdom to know the difference.’
