I pushed myself to excel in all that I did, in and out of my office.
After 50 years of this behavior, of which I include four years of dental school, I dropped dead of a heart attack at an Olympic pool facility. I was very lucky since they had a defibrillator, and the fire station was next door.
The defibrillator got my heart pumping again and the firefighters got me breathing again.
The inner lining of my arteries got damaged from the prolonged stress over the 50 years, and calcium from the bloodstream was able to settle out on the roughened surface and plug the vessels.
The message I learned the hard way is that our brain sends messages to us about our physical and mental condition.
It is very important that we listen to these messages, and act accordingly.
I totally ignored the messages since I was trying to achieve and kept going even if I was tired or stressed out.
Prolonged stress has recently been scientifically-proven to contribute to more heart attacks than high cholesterol in the blood.
Prolonged stress lowers the body’s immune system, allowing us to get sick with cancer, shingles, etc. Please learn the message that I learned the hard way: Listen to the messages from your brain, and act accordingly.
Mark Lazare, B.Sc,.DDS,FAGD
Montreal, Quebec
