We often speak of the human heart as if it were merely a machine—an efficient pump, a muscle with a rhythm that keeps us alive. But the truth is far more tender and complex. The heart is a quiet companion, a keeper of secrets, an unseen witness to the stories we carry inside. It beats in harmony with our joys, stumbles with our sorrows, and keeps going long after we feel like giving up. More often than we realise, it suffers not just from disease, but from the heavy silence of emotional pain that we rarely acknowledge.

We have been taught to think of heart disease in mechanical terms: check your blood pressure, watch your cholesterol, manage your sugar, walk more, eat better, and quit smoking. These are important, no doubt, but there is another force at play—a subtle, persistent presence that we tend to overlook: “stress”. Not the fleeting kind that comes and goes with the day, but the kind that settles deep in the chest, wearing the heart down slowly, like water shaping stone over years.

Stress doesn’t always announce itself with fanfare. Sometimes it slips in quietly, hiding in sleepless nights, forced smiles, and clenched jaws. It grows in the background—through years of caregiving without pause, grief that never quite leaves, financial worries that gnaw at our peace, and the exhausting act of pretending to be okay when we are not. While we push forward, the heart takes note. It adjusts, it shields, and over time, it begins to change in ways we cannot see.

Science is finally catching up to what many of us have felt intuitively: stress is not just a feeling; it is a physical force. When we are under stress,........

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