Written by: Lisa D’Alessandro, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Love is the frequency of the heart, that needs to be triggered repeatedly.
Love being symbolic of what drives our universal being, our life, our vitality and the emotion that rules the essence of our joyful spirit that keeps us in a higher state of harmony.
As the heart rules the blood and blood vessels, it also reigns over our spirit and in TCM(traditional Chinese Medicine) it’s known as our Shen. When one’s heart energy is harmonious, the mind is acute and clear, the physical body is exuberant with the spirit remaining in a state of peace and calm.
The heart runs on an emotional circuitry, one of the most important nutrients for optimum health on a cellular level is that of love. This vibrational energy can get depleted when stress, fear, worry, anger and resentment are present even for short periods.
This love ‘vitamin’ helps to catalyze all human functions and particularly important to our three brains— that of the emotional heart, the gut “feeling” brain and our actual computer brain. The heart is a muscle with memory, composed of neurons to set off signaling and an endocrine type organ or gland releasing peptides of an oxytocin hormone improving stress levels, circulation and pure bliss.
It can make your heart skip a beat, your head feels a little fuzzy or at times give you the chills, but it definitely leaves us with a warm feeling and often delivers a smile to your face raising the essence of our being.
Proper nutrition can dramatically reduce your risk of heart disease as can regular exercise, stress management, and a balanced lifestyle of healthy habits.
Do you know that heart disease is deadlier than cancer? We still have the highest rate of heart disease in the world and cardiovascular deaths happen every 42 seconds!
Life has its many faceted stressors that affect the rhythms of cellular communication and it shows itself when one is restless, feeling overwhelmed, has insomnia issues, poor memory, anxiety and attacks of panic present itself.
A joyful heart allows us to effectively deal with daily stressors. It will improve digestion, calm the nervous system as adrenaline is brought to better balance.
When vitamin Love pumps through us continuously it triggers the release of natural endorphins that act like a tranquilizer reducing pain, stress and can produce a feeling of euphoria.
It can be found in those nearest and dearest to you, it can be awakened with gratitude and appreciation, it can be easily digested from a home-cooked meal, it can be seen in nature or when watching a Hallmark movie. It can be felt in a kind gesture, it can be delivered through a hug, it can rock your world during an orgasm and be released while exercising, listening to music you love or hearing the laughter of a baby, child or social situation.
Today science knows the heart contains a complex and intrinsic nervous system similar to our brain and sends emotional and intuitive signals to the brain continuously, millisecond by millisecond. It is being recognized as the heart/brain axis.
Your heart communicates with your head both through electrical signals and chemicals based on how one feels—our emotional self and what we know to be true, via the brains intelligence.
Another interesting heart fact is that it has ‘spidey senses’ and the heart can pick up on a sense 3 seconds before we feel or register that emotion.
Similar to the gut-brain axis, knowing our cells communicate via the nervous system through bacteria, hormones, neurotransmitters that emanate from the microbiome, signaling throughout the body innately.
The signals across the heart-brain axis control cellular coherence which is the concept that optimal function in one tissue like the heart will and can optimize functioning in another tissue, the brain.
In Functional Medicine everything is interconnected and the heart and nervous system run the show, but the food is also information to our cells, organs and tissues.
With our entire circulatory system consists of arteries, veins and capillaries that would extend for thousands of miles and are responsible for bringing nutrients, oxygen to our cells and tissues while carrying out waste. It works 24/7 in stealth mode as we go about our daily life and for which, we often take for granted.
So many individuals have stepped up their game on taking preventative care for their cardiovascular system by making exercise more of a daily routine. Even cutting down on fatty fried foods, salt, sodium and sugar consumption or by increasing good sources of fiber as well as more antioxidant rich whole foods.
Yet heart disease remains the No.1 killer disease in America. That is because stress in its many forms, kills silently and softly. Or causes one in every three to live with coronary vascular disease, making it well over 80 million people who present with unhealthy cholesterol levels.
Gluten, wheat, sugar, GMO's, pesticides, artificial ingredients, anything unnatural provokes an inflammatory response in everyone! Sadly, 80% of people succumb to changes to the intestinal wall which allows various compounds, food particles and bacteria along with their immune-suppressing toxic components like lipopolysaccharides to enter the bloodstream.
One’s blood can be dirtier and sludgier than it should be as larger protein inflammatory molecules leak out through the gut walls thin lining and how leaky gut syndrome is more dominant than we believe it to be so.
This is why today individuals are more susceptible to mental health issues or physical disorders like weight loss resistance, thyroid conditions, diabetes, hundreds of autoimmune disorders and cardiovascular disease.
Our gut health is compromised and there's too much permeability from toxins, pesticides, crap foods, pathogens and stress in its many furtive forms.
A leaky gut sends more impurities into the bloodstream. And research reveals how a compromised microbiome is where it begins.
Yes, you must heal your gut, to heal your heart, that could ultimately save your life
For the love of thyself, removing non-nutritional white flour products, sugar, processed foods, hydrogenated (trans fat)products, genetically modified food sources including grains, gluten and cutting out grain-fed animal products is the first steps towards building a better you!
Calm the shen as stress is inevitable and cumulative. Do more for raising your vibrational love vitamin and making more lifestyle changes that will support your heart~gut~brain axis.
If you’d like to pursue preventing circulatory issues, I invite you to my blog on Twelve Tips for Heart Health.
Lisa D’Alessandro, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Lisa D’Alessandro is an Entrepreneur and Holistic Heart~Gut~Brain Axis Nutritional Coach who’s walked this walk with her own well-being, her children and countless others. She helps overwhelmed entrepreneurs and mama's put on their oxygen masks to boost their moods, memory, digestion, immunity, metabolism and resilience with holistic solutions for the gut/brain axis so they can calm the cellular chaos within and age more gracefully, blissfully with greater mental vigor and physical vitality. Her other mission is how children’s minds and lives are being compromised which is not beyond our control, but sadly manipulated by marketing, toxic overload in products and the big pharma for which lifestyle choices, food and specific phytonutrients are key to unlocking anyone’s full physiological potential. Let’s lead by example and be the change we wish to see in the world
