Any cardiologists on MN?

[GardenDreams]

Or people who know and understand biology and the working's of the heart?
Thought it might be better to put this on reddit, but worth a try anyway!

So, I have recently become more active and having a great time. Am enjoying cardio, mountain climbing and yoga. I have always been pretty active, but have a renewed interest since reaching 50.
But I am really intrigued by a few things about heart health.

We know that the heart loves activity, so doing healthy exercise that makes us out of breath a bit feels good (I can vouch!), and doing relaxing stuff like meditation lowers the heart rate and that feels great too.

So why the extremes? Why does the heart like both vigorous activity AND super relaxation? What about the in-between?
I am also interested in why the stress response of palpitations feels so bad, since it is making the heart race like running would, but no....quite the same result. Why are some things that make the heart beat faster 'bad' yet some 'good'?

And does this also relate to blood pressure?

Sorry if this is a bad fit for MN, I didn't know where else to put it. I would love to learn more.

Op thank you !
I am so following this thread 🤣 ❤️❤️❤️!

I'm not a Cardiologist, but is the feeling good not related to endorphin release rather than as a result of the increased heart rate? So it's more of an endocrine system response than cardio.

I'm not so sure.
Was chatting with my friend today about it and neither of us had thought about it before. It is definitely not just emotion of endorphins, as when stressed, scared or really overwrought I feel weak, lightheaded, unpleasant, so 'something' is altering that as well as how I feel mentally - maybe cortisol?

I wondered how the heart could somehow define which effect had sped it up
if it was simply about moving the muscle itself, then stress would be good for it, and we know that it clearly is not.

I am also intrigued by how both relaxing and vigorous movement makes the heart healthier, we just assume this as the NHS tells us, but they don't go into detail as to 'how' it works..

I think there ought to be a tv show similar to 'how it's made' about how the body works.

Anyone ever see that old documentary by Jonathan Miller 'the body in question'? That was bloody awesome. Def check it out on youtube. I learned a lot about how the circulatory system works, blood pressure, etc, but sadly not the 'why'.

I'm no expert but will attempt to help answer. There is also alot of literature out there but you would need some basic anatomical/physiology knowledge to decipher much of it! I will say this is basic and there is alot more detail to it but in a nutshell!!

Put simply the important thing is your resting heart rate (the inbetweeny bit you refer to!) Huge amount of studies demonstrating a resting heart rate of below 75 beats per minute (give or take) is associated with better heart health. Why? as it's associated with a well functioning heart that fills and pumps well, lower blood pressure cholesterol etc.

How do we get a resting HR below 75 BPM?

• exercise :

elevate heart rate and exercise the heart muscle As the heart pumps more blood around the body to feed the muscles the lungs have to work harder to bring enough oxygen to this blood (hence increased breathing rate) which also strengthens their capacity and function, benefitting the cardiovascular system as a whole. Lowers cholesterol to reduce chances of coronary heart disease/stroke etc through reducing horrible fatty deposits in your arteries.

Next to stress response:

This works in a different way, the stress response is a hormonal response to a perceived stress, resulting in cortisol and adrenaline being released which in turn increase heart rate but also give us that horrible panic/dread feeling that you don't get from your heart rate increasing in other ways.

So how does yoga/meditation benefit the heart?
It's thought to reduce the above response and then comes back to contributing to the resting heart rate.

Obviously there are otheretabolic changes in the body but stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline can increase blood pressure by constricting your blood vessels so it's harder for the heart to pump blood round as it's fighting against tight vessel walls.

Hope that helps a little!

This is what I was looking for, thank you so much!

And now I am interested in how exercise can reduce the fatty deposits in arteries. What is the mechanism? (not aiming that at you, just throwing it out there).
I thought only medication could clear or reduce an already clogged artery. This is really interesting stuff, but probably not conducive to merrymaking on a Saturday night between xmas and new year, lol.

I think dr Brad Stanfield just covered this in a YouTube video. A study on HIIT over 6 months helped clear arteries

https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/activity/can-exercise-lower-cholesterol

Some really good, well described stuff on the British heart Foundation website if you need some bedtime reading!

Also vitamin K2 MK7

This was a good read, thank you. I didn't know that exercise actually lowered cholesterol.
Interesting to hear that physical activity aids in sending the 'bad' cholesterol to the liver to be cleared out.