SAY YES! With Your Mind, Body, and Spirit to Heart Health!

By Jill Hollander, Guest Blogger and Heart Ambassador, American Heart Association

Today is World Heart Day, I have learned from personal experience how important and necessary it is to take care of your heart. I was born with a congenital heart defect, have had two open heart surgeries, and a heart transplant. My life has shown me that we get to choose how we respond to every situation, even the challenging ones. We can choose to be bitter, or we can choose to do everything in our power to think and act in a way that will help us feel better, to persevere, and rise up to our challenges! 

As a motivational speaker and resiliency coach, I share with audiences the importance of taking care of our health and wellness from a Holistic perspective as being essential. This is because each area feeds off the other and creates a domino effect. The more optimistic good feeling thoughts that we think, the better we feel emotionally, the more we are going to want to take care of ourselves which increases our physical momentum as well, this is why we need to Say YES! with our mind, body, and spirit to heart health.

Say YES! with your mind by:

  • Knowing that having a mindset of YES! is important when creating a heart healthy lifestyle. 
  • Believing that you can create the YES! Filled Mindset, which is a mindset that fosters:
    • The attributes of grit, tenacity, and determination. 
    • Reframing negative feeling thoughts to ones that are more optimistic. 
    • Positive self-talk that promotes the YES! I can and will mentality.
    • Engagement in activities that calm your mind to reduce stress inducing thoughts. Your mental health can affect your heart health.

This mindset will help you to develop a consistent and proactive approach to aligning your thoughts, feelings and actions, which will promote empowered action

Say YES! with your body by:

Making changes in our diet and/or exercise regime takes commitment, dedication, and consistency which could be reinforced with a spiritual and emotional connection.

Say YES! with your spirit by:

Using the YES! mindset paired with action to inspire positive emotions of enthusiasm and excitement about redefining what living a heart healthy lifestyle means for you may diminish overtime. Therefore, you may need to remind yourself or your personal reason of why taking care of your heart matters to you to keep you committed to your journey. What may help you to continually reconnect and promote momentum may be:

  • Connecting with your beliefs to help bring you guidance and motivate you to persevere.
  • Holding on to hope will enable you to keep showing up no matter what.
  • Feeling supported by family, friends, medical professionals, and resources.
  • Boost your mood with healthier food

Continued connection with your personal reasons for saying YES! to your heart health, will help you to stay spiritually and emotionally invested. 

Say YES! with your mind, body and spirit to your heart health. It doesn’t matter where or how you begin. It is an individual journey, so you get to choose. There is no specific order that needs to be followed regarding if you begin by shifting your mindset, physically moving your body, or connecting spiritually and emotionally-whatever motivates you. All that matters is that you say YES! in a way that feels right for you mentally, physically, and emotionally.

For more tips on how you can stay heart healthy, visit, heart.org.

The views, opinions and positions expressed within these guest posts are those of the author alone and do not represent those of The American Heart Association | American Stroke Association. The accuracy, completeness and validity of any statements made within this article are not guaranteed. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions or representations. The copyright of this content belongs to the author and any liability with regards to infringement of intellectual property rights remains with them.

The American Heart Association’s blog is not intended to provide medical advice or treatment. Only your healthcare provider can provide that. The American Heart Association recommends that you consult your healthcare provider regarding your personal health matters. If you think you are having a heart attack, stroke or another emergency, please call 911 immediately.