In the vein of Gut and The Brain That Changes Itself, a gripping exploration into the inner workings of the heart and how emotions and lifestyle affect every beat. 'Dr Stamp is so clearly in love with her subject: that wonderful and yet still mysterious organ, the human heart.' Michael Mosley When actress Debbie Reynolds died a day after her beloved daughter, Carrie Fisher, the world diagnosed it as 'heartbreak'. But what's the evidence? Does emotional upheaval affect the heart? Can love, or chocolate, really heal our heart problems? And why do we know so much about heart attacks in men, when they are more fatal in women? Heart and lung surgeon Dr Nikki Stamp takes us into the operating theatre, explaining what she sees in patients with heart complications and how a life-saving transplant works. Stamp fell in the love with the heart as a child and continues to be fascinated by its workings and the whole-of-life experiences that affect it. Rich with anecdotes, and insights for maintaining heart health, Can You Die of a Broken Heart? is a blockbuster from a uniquely positioned young specialist.

In 2016, beloved actress Carrie Fisher passed away, leaving hordes of Star Wars fans adrift. The tragedy was that a day after we lost the incredible Fisher, her mother Debbie Reynolds died of a stroke. Some say that desperately bereft without her daughter, Reynolds died of a broken heart. Whilst in times of great emotion we often feel that our heart has shattered into a million pieces, is it really true? Can you really die of a broken heart? Written by one of the eleven female heart surgeons in the whole of Australia, Dr Nikki Stamp’s Can You Die of a Broken Heart? is not a whimsical, philosophical assessment of the heart, nor is it a book that will provide you with a list of things you must do to be healthy or a plan to follow, set out day by day. Instead, Nikki aims to instill her love and passion for the heart into every reader: “I want to show you how incredible our hearts truly are. We will explore how they work, how they get sick and what we know about looking after them. I want you to walk away just as enthralled by this pump that sits in the centre of our chests that keeps us alive. I want you to be so armed with information for your new found enthrallment with your heart that you will want to care for it every day.” Broken down into fourteen chapters, Can You Die of a Broken Heart? explains how stress, food, fat, exercise, depression, sleep, love, gender, nutrition and genetics can all play a part when it comes to heart health so you can do your best to understand the importance of keeping your body and mind as healthy as possible. Did you know that running is the best form of exercise to keep your heart healthy? That love can help you to recover from heart disease much more effectively than those without, and that grief can literally make your heart stop? Did you know that those suffering from depression are 1.6 times more likely to suffer heart problems than those who have never had depression? And that men and women have different symptoms when they have a heart attack (it’s not just the Hollywood clutching of the chest!)? Packed full of interesting anecdotes of the heart health of Nikki’s patients, Nikki explains what heart failure is, how it affects our bodies both emotionally and physically, and why it is imperative that we have a greater understanding of the importance of the heart and why we should keep as healthy as possible. Nikki highlights that in the past, heart attacks have only been explored in relation to men. Did you know women are more likely to die from heart disease than they are cancer? And whilst men who suffer from heart attacks are most likely to call an ambulance, women call their mothers, believing their symptoms of nausea, headaches and back ache are just signs of being run down. Can You Die of a Broken Heart? is a fascinating insight into the workings of the heart and how emotions and lifestyle affect every beat, from a rare female voice in what is undeniably a male-dominated profession.

A Broken Heart Still Beats Softcover

Imagine if we treated broken hearts with the same respect and concern we have for broken arms? Psychologist Guy Winch urges us to rethink the way we deal with emotional pain, offering warm, wise, and witty advice for the broken-hearted. Real heartbreak is unmistakable. We think of nothing else. We feel nothing else. We care about nothing else. Yet while we wouldn’t expect someone to return to daily activities immediately after suffering a broken limb, heartbroken people are expected to function normally in their lives, despite the emotional pain they feel. Now psychologist Guy Winch imagines how different things would be if we paid more attention to this unique emotion—if only we can understand how heartbreak works, we can begin to fix it. Through compelling research and new scientific studies, Winch reveals how and why heartbreak impacts our brain and our behavior in dramatic and unexpected ways, regardless of our age. Emotional pain lowers our ability to reason, to think creatively, to problem solve, and to function at our best. In How to Fix a Broken Heart he focuses on two types of emotional pain—romantic heartbreak and the heartbreak that results from the loss of a cherished pet. These experiences are both accompanied by severe grief responses, yet they are not deemed as important as, for example, a formal divorce or the loss of a close relative. As a result, we are often deprived of the recognition, support, and compassion afforded to those whose heartbreak is considered more significant. Our heart might be broken, but we do not have to break with it. Winch reveals that recovering from heartbreak always starts with a decision, a determination to move on when our mind is fighting to keep us stuck. We can take control of our lives and our minds and put ourselves on the path to healing. Winch offers a toolkit on how to handle and cope with a broken heart and how to, eventually, move on.

In More Die of Heartbreak, our erratic narrator explains to his audience that he must abandon Paris for the Midwest. Of course, Kenneth merely wants to be closer to his beloved uncle, the world-famous botanist Benn Crader, to receive the older man’s worldly wisdom. The mercurial Benn, however, struggles to put down roots himself, constantly departing for the forests of India, the mountains of China, the jungles of Brazil, or even the Antarctic. Why does he travel so much? Submerging himself in botanical studies seem insufficient, and he hunts relentlessly for more carnal satisfaction. More Die of Heartbreak has all the humor of a French farce, and all the brooding darkness of a Hitchcock film. From this tragicomedy Bellow unravels a brilliant and sinister examination of contemporary sexuality, asking why even the most noble pursuits often end in mundane disillusionment.

A revelatory depiction of what animals can teach us about the human body and mind, exploring how animal and human commonality can be used to diagnose, treat, and heal patients of all species. "Full of fascinating stories.” —Atul Gawande, M.D. Do animals overeat? Get breast cancer? Have fainting spells? Inspired by an eye-opening consultation at the Los Angeles Zoo, which revealed that a monkey experienced the same symptoms of heart failure as human patients, cardiologist Barbara Natterson-Horowitz embarked upon a project that would reshape how she practiced medicine. Beginning with the above questions, she began informally researching every affliction that she encountered in humans to learn whether it happened with animals, too. And usually, it did: dinosaurs suffered from brain cancer, koalas can catch chlamydia, reindeer seek narcotic escape in hallucinogenic mushrooms, stallions self-mutilate, and gorillas experience clinical depression. Natterson-Horowitz and science writer Kathryn Bowers have dubbed this pan-species approach to medicine zoobiquity. New York Times Bestseller An O, The Oprah Magazine “Summer Reading” Pick A Discover Magazine Best Book

Winner of the 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award A Five Books "Best Literary Science Writing" Book of 2023 • A Smithsonian Best Science Book of 2022 • A Prospect Magazine Top Memoir of 2022 • A KCRW Life Examined Best Book of 2022 "Keen observer [and] deft writer" (David Quammen) Florence Williams explores the fascinating, cutting-edge science of heartbreak while seeking creative ways to mend her own. When her twenty-five-year marriage suddenly falls apart, journalist Florence Williams expects the loss to hurt. But when she starts feeling physically sick, losing weight and sleep, she sets out in pursuit of rational explanation. She travels to the frontiers of the science of "social pain" to learn why heartbreak hurts so much—and why so much of the conventional wisdom about it is wrong. Soon Williams finds herself on a surprising path that leads her from neurogenomic research laboratories to trying MDMA in a Portland therapist’s living room, from divorce workshops to the mountains and rivers that restore her. She tests her blood for genetic markers of grief, undergoes electrical shocks while looking at pictures of her ex, and discovers that our immune cells listen to loneliness. Searching for insight as well as personal strategies to game her way back to health, she seeks out new relationships and ventures into the wilderness in search of an extraordinary antidote: awe. With warmth, daring, wit, and candor, Williams offers a gripping account of grief and healing. Heartbreak is a remarkable merging of science and self-discovery that will change the way we think about loneliness, health, and what it means to fall in and out of love.