Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Dr Reinhard Friedl, Black Inc., $34.99.
The Beat of Life is a fascinating examination of the complex relationship between the heart, the brain and the human spirit. Most of the time you don’t hear your heart beat, but if suddenly your heart were to stop, you’d stop too. A sobering thought.
Eminent German surgeon Dr Friedl has held thousands of hearts in his hands – literally – and has operated on premature babies and repaired the heart valves of the elderly, implanted artificial heart turbines and stitched up stabbing wounds too.
The heart is our most important – and perhaps most mysterious – organ. Every day it pumps 9,000 litres of blood and beats around 100,000 times. However, it is more than just a pump. In all major human cultures, it is seen as the source of love, sympathy, joy, courage, strength and wisdom.
Why is this so? Having witnessed the astonishing intricacy and randomness of human hearts in the operating theatre – each one individual in its make-up, like a fingerprint – Dr Friedl went searching for answers. The heart surgeon, who set out to “rediscover his missing heart”, has compiled both age-old and up-to-date findings from various scientific disciplines, especially concerning the secret connections of the heart and the brain and their influence on emotions and consciousness.
Written with Shirley Michaela Seul and translated by Gert Reifarth, Dr Friedl
uses captivating personal stories to illustrate the complex relationship between the heart, the brain and the psyche. “Your heartbeat is my profession. Sixty to eighty times per minute, this sound creates life.”
There is a plea in The Beat of Life: adopt a more heart-centred way of living for greater health. Breathe steadily and consciously perceive what your heart has to tell you. After a while you may feel how your heart gives you life with every ba-boom. The heart is a pump, a “miracle of precision and strength”.
