Valentine’s Day (Feb. 14) is here again, marking a national holiday and annual reminder to celebrate romantic and platonic love and admiration for others. As February is also National Heart Awareness Month, this love season illuminates a testament to how healthy relationships and happiness can contribute to physical heart wellness.
The love Joann Moore shares with her husband of 25 years still brings her profound happiness.
While every day together is special to them, Moore, 57, still relishes in the joy of spending another Valentine’s Day with her longtime husband.
“To still be able to celebrate Valentine’s Day with him is something that I really cherish,” Moore told The Informer. “We don’t care about gifts and things like that. We just do a nice dinner either at home, or this Friday, we plan to go out to a nice restaurant.”
Moore was in her early 30’s when she met her lifelong partner at a friend’s house party in Reston, Virginia. What started as a casual meeting quickly turned into a promising partnership, gelling together with ease, and eventually growing into the healthy marriage that she attributes to a significant portion of her happiness and quality of life.
Happiness and love are considered significant ways to maintain a healthy heart. Research shows that positive emotions from loving relationships—particularly marriage— can lower blood pressure, reduce stress, improve the immune system, and overall decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease.
According to a 2017 study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, in comparison with married participants, “being unmarried was associated with higher risk of all-cause mortality” and “cardiovascular death or myocardial infarction.”
Although some single folks may debate those statistics, research underscores the importance of social connection. People who are more socially connected often see reduced risk for earlier death from all causes, including cardiovascular disease.
Inversely, research from the American Heart Association also points to poor social relationships being commonly “associated with a 29% increased risk for coronary heart disease and a 32% increased risk for stroke,” as social isolation may increase stress, raise blood pressure, and increase inflammation.
Dr. Quinn Capers, professor and chair of the Howard University College of Medicine, underscored the positive impact that happiness has on health, especially when felt in connection with other people.
“Some of the hormones—our stress hormones that make our blood pressure go up, and our heart rate— those actually come down when we’re connected to other people socially in positive ways,” Capers told The Informer. “When we feel connected, joyful, happy—you might say, when we’re in love— [when] we’re around people that make us feel comfortable, it actually is good for our heart.”
Single and Sick: Heart Health in Men vs. Women
While statistics point to increased risk of cardiovascular disease and fatalities for unmarried people, Capers told The Informer there are interesting gender nuances behind those statistics.
“The data, as I have come to know it and what I clearly see in my practice, is that married men live longer than single men. We think that’s because wives do such a good job of making sure their husbands are taking their medicine, getting your prescriptions filled, getting [their] prostate checks and all those things,” Capers explained.
However, married women don’t seem to be as lucky as their male counterparts.
“At least some data suggests, not all studies,” Capers said, “that the opposite is true for women, that single women live longer than married women.”
Capers explained that while women are often the lead caregivers in both their communities and homes, they unfortunately run the risk of neglecting their own needs met.
“This is why I say [for] the husbands, that we’re not doing as good a job for our wives as they are for us, in making sure we take good care of ourselves,” Capers said. “Valentine’s Day is coming up, so all husbands get a reset, and we have to do better.”
Luckily for Moore, she has experienced the better side of this in her marriage, noting the physical impact of her husband’s care and support during her recovery after a scare with high blood pressure.
“I believe that if you have a happy home, your health will fare a lot better. I really do love going home every night. I actually have hypertension, and when I first found out, my husband took good care of me,” Moore told The Informer. “He ironed my clothes, helped dress me, and just gave me the support I needed at that time. My husband and I always take care of each other.”
A Love Affair to Heal Community
Restaurants and jewelry stores aren’t the only ones catering to couples for Valentine’s Day.
Ayo Handy-Kendi, certified breathologist and CEO of PositivEnergyWorks is hosting her annual “Black Love Day” celebration. The event, held on Thursday, Feb. 13, is a 32-year old District celebration inspired to create a day promoting Black love to combat violence across the city.
Hosted at the Multimedia Training Institute, Studio W, in Southeast, D.C, this year’s celebration will present rituals of reconciliation and healing. The event works to address relationship issues and promote self-love and unity, tenets that Kendi appoints as the foundation of healthy love and relationships.
“When we don’t have love, we tend to be more abusive to ourselves, and have a difficult time articulating our loving needs to someone else [when we don’t have] the role model showing us what real love is about,” Kendi told The Informer. “Love is a critical element of self development.”
A native Washingtonian, Kendi’s inspiration behind her work has stemmed from her calling to heal the heavy, traumatic wounding many District residents have experienced whether in childhood, with family, or in their adult relationships.
Amid the epidemic of loneliness in this country— with about 29% of people living alone— the isolation can lead to psychological and mental health problems, which can actually affect the heart.
Kendi’s focus on breath work and breathing techniques shared during the Black Love Day event, aims to reverse the risk of health concerns related to an absence of healthy, loving relationships.
“With a closed heart, the consciousness is minimized, the heart rate variability that governs the actual connection between the in and out of the heart and the blood flow. All of that is shifted. This became a spiritual and mental physical phenomenon to me,” Kendi explained. “So, I made the decision that it was really important that I start the concept of breatheology with people, so that they can have an open heart, so they can breathe freely and fully with that open heart.”
The breathologist emphasized having open hearts “allow us to have real life, real health, real awareness, real consciousness, and everything that the heart gives us.”
