The Heart Speaks: A Cardiologist Reveals the Secret Language of Healing Paperback – January 2, 2007

The Heart Speaks is a beautiful book written by a cardiologist who really has a heart. Dr. Mimi weaves her life experiences and stories of her patients throughout the book – including the childhood tragedy of losing her mother to a heart attack. Her medical school training required all emotion to be suppressed. She learned to do this and for years operated on heart patients but didn’t really know them. She says in the introduction:“No one spoke of the other layers of the heart that didn’t appear in a stress test or electrocardiogram: the mental heart affected by hostility, stress and depression, the emotional heart that could be crushed by loss, the intelligent heart that has a nervous system of its own and communicates with the brain and other parts of the body. No one lectured about the spiritual heart that yearns for a higher purpose, the universal heart that communicates with others, or the original heart that beats in the unborn fetus before the brain is formed.”Dr. Mimi learned to listen to her patients in order to discover the correct diagnosis, finding this often more accurate than tests or her medical training. As a result the most puzzling or difficult patients responded and were helped by her.She offers research to back up her use of an integrative approach to her patients. She develops an integrated individual treatment plan for healing including for example, acupuncture, yoga, good nutrition, and prayer and suggests these to her patients.My review doesn’t do justice to this marvelous book. There is much to learn from this book. It will be helpful to patients, doctors, nurses and the entire medical community. Perhaps this will open and heal many hearts. Perhaps it will even help transform the health care system.

This is an excellent book. It is written by Dr. Mimi Guarneri who is a cardiologist that changed her practice tomorrow holistic medicine measures. The great thing about this book is it talks about her life and how she got into cardiology which started with her mother being very ill when she was a child. She goes on to talk about her first years as an intern and the many surgery she performed. This lays down the foundation for the book into where she really gets into how you can truly have a healthy heart and how to live with disease. Don’t be fooled though there’s a lot of work involved if you want to change your wife doing the things that she recommends. It is the most Integrative, commonsense book that I have ever read. The thing I like most about it is Dr. coronaries personal situation that with her to this point in her journey as a healthcare practitioner. Just go ahead and read it if you’re having heart problems that can’t hurt.

Suffering from terrible panic attacks while going through a divorce from a cardiologist, a friend gave me this book. Having spent many years with a "man of science" with no spiritual inclinations, I was empowered by this book written by a woman, and a cardiologist of great noteriety who embraced the existance of a spiritual element which can't be tested in a double blind study. I read the book and then bought a copy for everyone in my family that Christmas. Dr. Guerneri's narrative provides an account of her evolving theoretical perspective as well as small vignettes which illustrate her epiphanies. She honestly admits to the limitations of medicine, arguing that with all the amazing innovations we have today, we still don't clearly understand the mind-body connection. She explains how very different humans are and how very differently each responds to stress. She also argues that in treating patients doctors can't ignore the fact that patients may not respond to known remedies simply because there must be a mental/spiritual "buy in". She tells several stories of people and how they responded to alternative approaches which enabled her western medicine to work. It is a very interesting read!

Dr. Guarneri, MD has written a very fine book. While there isn't a great deal of new material within the book, there is still enough new and insightful information to rank this book as a first choice read.Guarneri covers three aspects of the heart, the physical, the "language" and items going beyond the physical heart. The language of the heart outlines the non-physical factors that do affect heart health. To me, this isn't new information however the fact that an esteemed doctor as deemed these factors as extremely problematic for one's heart health certainly lends much creedence to the factors.I must advise any readers that it is not my style to give a book report review but to simply advise if the book is worth the read or not and to give some simple information. With this in mind, I would recommend this title to anyone and everyone. She is a good author using examples that are tangible, she writes in an extremely readable fashion and she keeps the book interesting. She also gives new information that will change your outlook on your heart and encourage you to maintain its health through your healthy habits and surroundings.Buy it, borrow it, read it. It's worth it.