Lifeline

Advances in modern medicine have added years to our lives, but now the challenge is to add healthy life to those years. At the same time, we are seeing anxiety and depression being diagnosed at unprecedented rates in both young and old, and the treatments can't keep up. Lifeline offers a roadmap to lifelong wellness, through powerful new research proving our heart and brain to be in constant dialogue, shaping our response to stress, our emotional lives, and our long-term resilience. This is the very same connection that underlies Broken Heart Syndrome (or Takotsubo Syndrome), where sudden emotional shock can temporarily paralyse the heart. It's also the underlying reason why chronic stress, loneliness and trauma increase cardiovascular risk, and why people with heart disease are more likely to develop anxiety, depression, and even cognitive decline over time. This new discovery of the connection between the two organs shows how it is reshaping our understanding of the body. We are not built from a collection of individual organs but intricate networks-nerve pathways, hormonal signals, pressure waves-linking heart and brain in fascinating ways. What has long been intuited across human cultures about this deep inner connection is now a burgeoning body of proven scientific fact. This book from the world leader in this subject matter is the first to explore it in depth and offers a new way to think about our health, resilience, and long-term wellbeing for ourselves and our families.