Synopses & Reviews
WEAVING MEDICAL NARRATIVE AND CUTTING-EDGE SCIENCE, DR. MIMI GUARNERI EXPLORES THE FRONTIERS BEYOND THE PHYSICAL HEART.
Every day, 2,600 Americans die of cardiovascular disease -- one person every thirty-three seconds. Ten times more women die of heart disease than breast cancer. Despite remarkable interventional and surgical procedures, over 650,000 new heart attacks occur annually. With groundbreaking new research, Dr. Guarneri skillfully blends the science and drama of the heart's unfolding. She reveals the heart as a multilayered, complex organ and explores the new science that indicates the heart acts as a powerhouse of its own, possessing intelligence, memory, and decision-making abilities that are separate from the mind.
When Dr. Guarneri was only eight, her vivacious forty-year-old mother died of a heart attack. To overcome the powerlessness she felt that night in Brooklyn when her mother was taken from her, she became a cardiologist -- healing her own heart by healing the hearts of her patients. Dr. Guarneri spent her early years as an overworked, sleep-deprived medical student, trained to view the heart as a simple mechanical pump. She came to realize through the lives of her patients, her own medical journeys, and breakthroughs in heart research that medicine is not just about stitching up patients and sending them on their way. The heart may be broken as much by loneliness and depression as high cholesterol and elevated blood pressure. The lessons of the heart are as much about forgiveness and gratefulness as they are about genetics and nutrition. And healing the heart can have much more to do with healing a mind and soul than we ever knew.
Fromthe racing heartbeats of cardiac emergencies to the gentle rhythms of healing touch, Dr. Guarneri draws us into the intimate moments of life and death. She leads us on a riveting exploration of the heart's mysteries, such as why heart transplant recipients may suddenly display unique characteristics of their donor or why someone who has normal coronary arteries may experience a heart attack. For it is only by knowing the whole heart -- the mental heart, affected by hostility, stress, and depression; the emotional heart, able to be crushed by loss; the intelligent heart, with a nervous system all its own; the spiritual heart, which yearns for a higher purpose; and the universal heart, which communicates with others -- that we can truly heal.
Review
"This deeply personal book...can change your life and might even save it."
-- Dean Ornish, M.D., author of Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease and Love & Survival
Review
"This is an honest, informative, and moving book by a leader in the transformation of medicine and health of medicine and health care. I recommend it."
-- Andrew Weil, M.D., author of Healthy Aging
Review
"[A] groundbreaking and heartwarming book...blending the latest research with unforgettable true stories."
-- Paul Pearsall, Ph.D., author of The Heart's Code
Review
"Like all genuine healers throughout history, Dr. Mimi Guarneri knows the power of story to heal, to make whole. She is a physician of the heart in all its many meanings."
-- Larry Dossey, M.D., author of The Extraordinary Power of Ordinary Things
Review
"Dr. Mimi Guarneri is a rare physician equally at home opening the heart with stents and also with compassion. She is a brilliant technician and a powerful healer. In this deeply personal book, she describes the heart in all its dimensions, integrating the latest advances in state-of-the-art science with ancient wisdom, drawing from her extraordinary experiences. This book can change your life and might even save it." -- Dean Ornish, M.D., author of Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease and Love and Survival
Review
"In her groundbreaking and heartwarming book, Dr. Guarneri has quite literally gotten to the heart of healing. Blending the latest research with unforgettable true stories, she teaches us how to listen to our heart's subtle language, think with its wisdom, rejoice in its loving memories, and connect with other hearts." -- Paul Pearsall, Ph.D., author of The Heart's Code: Tapping the Wisdom and Power of Our Heart Energy
Synopsis
Every day, 2,600 Americans die of cardiovascular disease—and despite remarkable interventional and surgical procedures, over 650,000 new heart attacks occur annually.
In The Heart Speaks, Dr. Mimi Guarneri reveals groundbreaking new research that the heart is a multilayered, complex organ, possessing intelligence, memory, and decision-making abilities independent from the mind—and that healing the heart can have more to do with healing the mind and soul than we ever knew.
From childhood in a family riddled with heart disease to a medical career facing the pounding heartbeats of cardiac emergencies, Dr. Guarneri draws us into the intimate moments of life and death, and leads us on a riveting exploration of the heart's many mysteries. Through her compelling memoir we see that it is only by knowing the whole heart—its mental, emotional, spiritual, and universal aspects—that we can truly heal.
About the Author
Dr. Mimi Guarneri is founder and medical director of Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine and has been an attending physician in cardiovascular disease at Scripps Clinic since 1995. Dr. Guarneri is the author of numerous articles that have appeared in such journals as the Annals of Internal Medicine and the Journal of Echocardiology. She has been nominated for the Bravewell Award in IM Leadership and honored by the American Heart Association. She is board certified in cardiology and internal medicine. She lives in La Jolla, California.
Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction: Biography of the Heart
Part 1: The Myth of the Mechanical Pump
1. The Unexamined Heart
2. A Heart, a Spleen, a Leaking Valve
Part 2: The Language of the Heart
3. The Fog of Stress
4. Echoes of Anger
5. The Landscape of Depression
6. Sacred Revelations
7. The Persistence of Grief
Part 3: Beyond the Physical Heart
8. The Little Brain
9. Universal Heart
10. Toward Compassionate Medicine
Notes
Further Reading
Acknowledgments