You Might Also Like: The Oprah Podcast

Oprah Winfrey (0:01)

This episode of the Oprah Podcast is presented by our partner, Geico. We're starting to see headlines that cardiovascular disease is impacting younger and younger women.

Kayla (0:12)

I had just turned 30, and I taught a fitness class that morning, and I was experiencing a STEMI heart attack.

Oprah Winfrey (0:19)

Wow.

Kayla (0:19)

Three stents were placed in my heart. I then went into cardiac arrest, and I needed multiple rounds of CPR and shocks.

They told my husband I needed to be life-flighted to a different hospital.

Oprah Winfrey (0:31)

Well, nearly 60% of black women just 20 years old and older are living with some form of cardiovascular disease. That stat knocked me out.

That is a wake-up call.

Hi, everybody. So great to be here with you on the Oprah Podcast. Think about this. During the time that you listen to this podcast, roughly 35 women in the United States will have a heart attack. 35 We hear this stat all the time, that heart disease is the number one killer of women in America, killing more women than all the forms of cancer combined. And yet it seems like it gets nowhere near the urgency and focus of breast cancer or menopause or infertility as it relates to women's health. And now we're hearing that it's impacting younger women in higher numbers. So I asked one of America's leading cardiologists to come on the podcast so that you can have all the latest and essential information to protect your one and only heart. And if you're a woman listening, please pay strict attention. Dr. Tara Narula is a board certified cardiologist, journalist, chief medical correspondent at ABC News, New York Times, bestselling author of The Healing Power of Resilience, A New Prescription for Health and Well-Being. Glad to have you here on the porch.

Dr. Tara Narula (2:02)

Thank you so much.

Oprah Winfrey (2:03)

Oh, I love this idea of The Healing Power of Resilience, and I want to hear how we can actually tap into that. I want to know how you define resilience.

Dr. Tara Narula (2:16)

It's a great question. And when I was researching the book Oprah, a lot of the psychologists have different definitions of what resilience is. And so for me, it was important to come up with my own based on my experience as a physician, as a human, as a journalist. And so I love the concept of resilience being the idea that you never ever go backwards, back to who you were.

Oprah Winfrey (2:37)

So I loved this. I love this.

Dr. Tara Narula (2:39)

And I like to frame it in the idea that you bounce forward to something new. I use the analogy in the book of Michelangelo, who says that he carved the marble until he set the angel free.

And so this concept that we are the marble and we are the angel, we're constantly evolving and being shaped by what happens to us in life, but that what happens to us cannot pause us and freeze us in time and paralyze us. We can actually grow and move forward and create a beautiful life, a life where we can thrive and grow and suck all the meaning and joy out of every single day. And that is my hope for my patients, for people who read the book, is to say no matter what life throws our way, no matter what challenges, we can bounce forward. We have that skill.

Oprah Winfrey (3:24)

And I think I love your definition because so many people want to go back to the way things were, whether it's in regards to your health or whether it's in regards to relationship. I say to my friends who are going through, you know, divorce, you know, you will create a new normal.

Dr. Tara Narula (3:40)

That's right.

Oprah Winfrey (3:40)

And you will come through it and you will not be the same person you were. You're going to be a stronger person than you were. And that's part of what resilience is, whether it's relationships or whether it's your personal health.

Dr. Tara Narula (3:52)

That's exactly right. And the book is really meant for anyone going through any challenge because at some point in time we will all go through something, whether, as you said, it is a divorce, a loss, a death, a disappointment, or a health challenge. And, you know, I see this in my patients when I walk in the room and they have had a stroke and they can't move the right side of their arm, or they've had a heart attack and they have heart failure. And they look at me and they wonder, when am I going to be myself again? This is what they ask me. And I tell them, you will never, ever be yourself again. But you can be-