What Has Love Got to Do with Your Health?

Love and support are important parts of your health. National Jewish Health Cardiologist Andrew Freeman, MD, explains why people who practice mindfulness and mediation, and have the support of a spouse or a loved one, live longer, healthier lives.

Transcript

I get a lot of questions about "why do you talk about these sort of squishy topics, love and support?”

And you know believe it or not, human beings are squishy things and so it’s an important thing.

And remember, the symbol of love is the heart and I’m a heart doctor, but you'd be surprised to learn that the people who have that love and support actually have excellent outcomes.

Real scientific studies showing that people do so much better when they have that in their day to day life.

And so in short, there’s even been studies that show that people who are practicing mindfulness and mediation and have the support of a spouse or a loved one, have longer telomeres which are the things that prevent us from aging.

So in short, there seems to be an effect from the mind body connection that is much stronger than most doctors or many people even know about.

And so I always preach this because I think it’s so very powerful as part of the four things for health which are: diet, exercise, stress relief and, of course, connection and support.

And of course, the last thing I’ll throw out is, when someone is really sick and they need a lung transplant or a heart transplant, what is first thing we ask?

We ask them about their support structure.

Because it is such a stressful and intense thing to go through that people do the best when they have that in place.

Visit njhealth.org/cardiology for more information.