Allison Mitura: Go down to the knees, all the way down.
Maria Trivelpiece: Allison Miutra was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy when she was 32 years old. Twelve years later she’s living a healthy life something she says she could not have imagined all those years ago.
Allison Mitura: My heart muscle was weakened by the virus and my heart
became very very enlarged so it was working in a very low efficiency
Maria Trivelpiece: Mitura followed a strict diet and could only perform limited movements. Then she found yoga.
Allison Mitura: Whatever you’re doing I feel that yoga embedded in life makes
everything brighter. It makes everything, it makes you appreciate everything
a little bit more and it makes you understand yourself a little bit more.
Maria Trivlepiece: One of the most prevalent risk factors of heart disease is high levels of stress, but you can change that by using yoga to reduce these levels of stress.
Allison Mitura: It would really help me to just focus on me. To decrease my stress, to be more aware of the choices I was making because I was thinking I wasn’t just shoving food in my face. I had this greater awareness than I had before.
Maria Trivelpiece: Kristy Smorol of the American Heart Association says that the purpose of Heart Month is to make people aware of cases like Mitura’s
and how they can prevent it.
Kristy Smorol: So it’s something that we take for granted a little bit, our heart health. But if we are not proactive then we won’t know if something is wrong.
Maria Trivelpiece: But she says, people don’t always understand what heart
disease is and it’s risk factors.
Kristy Smorol: If you were to look at someone with heart disease you may not be able to tell. People don’t necessarily have any physical or visual signs that they have heart disease.
Maria Trivelpiece: Mitura teaches yoga throughout the central New York area
because she wants others to feel the impact that can play in their life and
in their hearts. From Baldwinsville, Maria Trivelpiece, NCC News.
BALDWINSVILLE, N.Y. (NCC News) – American Heart Month was created by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1963 to raise awareness for heart and blood-related diseases. Fifty-seven years later, the tradition is still going strong. Every February, the country dedicates efforts to educate people on what heart disease is and its risk factors.
Director of communications at the Syracuse American Heart Association, Kristy Smorol, says, “We offer a variety of different programs including our ‘Check it Challenge,’ where we encourage people to check their blood pressure and programs in the schools.”
But for Allison Mitura, heart month is year-round. She is constantly aware of heart disease, its risk factors, and how to treat it because when she was 32 years old, she had it.
“My heart muscle was weakened by the virus and my heart became very very enlarged so it was working in a very low efficiency,” she said. “I had to start monitoring everything I ate and at times had trouble moving.”
Mitura described herself as a very vibrant person; so, this lifestyle change was difficult. After months of treatment, she was able to start low-impact exercise. That’s when she found yoga.
“I like to say that yoga saves,” she said.
The now 44-year-old credits the practice as the glue that kept her focused, present and able to make healthier choices. She became more aware and present of what was happening around her. Mitura said she could now focus on this new life and how she could live it in a vibrant, full way.
Because of her experience, she thinks American Heart Month is so important because people need to know what the disease is and its risk factors. And, she thinks they also should know that yoga can help with so many aspects of it.
“I think everyone should try yoga,” she said.
For more information on Heart Month, you can check out the American Heart Association’s website.
