Wear Red Day Supports Heart Health and Good Karma!

Most of us are aware of some common risk factors that contribute to heart disease -- both major factors (heredity, inactivity and high blood pressure) and contributing factors (smoking, stress and alcohol abuse). But there's one more very real risk factor you may not have considered: Bad Karma. 

Friday, Feb. 1 is National Wear Red Day, in which women everywhere are encouraged to wear red in support of the American Heart Association and its mission to raise funds to educate, treat and prevent heart disease. The organizers are working hard to get out the message that heart disease takes the life of 1 in 3 women each year, making it the No. 1 killer of women.

As we all slip into our scarlet sweaters to support this worthy cause, we are further inspired by an article in Psychology Today, linking heart disease to bad Karma -- which we at DH battle every day.

The Psychology Today article reports that cardiologists have long known angry people tend to have more heart attacks. It further explains:

"...hostility causes both a constriction of the arteries and more blood being pumped to the heart, causing small tears in the arteries. Cholesterol and fat then attach to those tears, which can ultimately cause heart attacks. Chronic hostility also has been linked to long-term elevations in white blood cells, which has been clearly associated with heart disease."

The article cites a study in which researchers follow a healthy group of medical students for 25 years to see if their levels of hostility at the beginning of the study could predict their heart disease rates down the road -- and guess what? Those highest in hostility at the beginning were five times more likely to have heart disease 25 years later.

Whether you're fighting heart disease, bad Karma or both, be sure to read more in Psychology Today’s “Bad Karma Is Real,” and then dig into all the useful tools we have here on the site to help improve your Karma (and your health!) every day.