Lifestyle Risk Factors for Heart Disease
How We Can Help You
Making healthy changes to your lifestyle can help prevent and manage heart disease. Some factors that can affect heart health include depression, chronic stress, excess weight, physical inactivity, trouble sleeping, smoking, or substance use.
Stanford’s Cardiac Behavioral Medicine Program offers expert care and counseling with licensed behavioral psychologists. With specialized expertise, they help people manage psychosocial and lifestyle risk factors for heart disease. They work with cardiologists, nutritionists, psychiatrists, and other specialists to help you protect your heart by making healthier choices.
Our skilled providers use treatments including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), biofeedback (therapy that helps people learn to control involuntary bodily actions, such as heart rate), and other mindfulness-based techniques to help prevent and cope with heart disease.
What We Offer You for Lifestyle Factors for Heart Disease
- Specialized expertise of licensed clinical psychologists trained in health psychology, biofeedback, and mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques.
- Collaborative care that includes teamwork between psychologists, psychiatrists, cardiologists, dietitians, and other specialists.
- Specialized support services such as smoking cessation programs, nutrition consultation, and stress-management classes.
- Comprehensive lifestyle modification program, including one of the country’s largest psychological support programs for people at risk for heart disease.
- Active research program that includes studies on the psychological impact that SCAD has on women and the use of telecommunication to manage hypertension.
Treatments for Lifestyle Factors for Heart Disease
At our Cardiac Behavioral Medicine Program, our licensed clinical psychologists work with you to make small, sustainable changes to prevent heart disease. Our psychologists work in tandem with your provider and other specialists to check on your progress and support you every step of the way.
We use the latest technology, including apps and wearable devices, which allow you to track your progress. Because these tools sync up with our MyHealth system, we can also monitor your improvements and stay in communication with you in between appointments.
Your personalized plan may include one treatment or a combination of therapies, such as:
Stanford has one of the country’s largest psychological support programs for people at increased risk for heart disease.
Biofeedback
This therapy uses sensors to gather real-time physiologic information about a person’s stress response. Our psychologists then train patients how to use specialized techniques to adjust the body’s reaction to stress, including processes that we don’t normally have control over, such as heart rate.
We work with specialists at Stanford’s Tobacco Cessation Program who have extensive experience in helping people quit smoking. The program offers one-on-one meetings, mindfulness-based techniques, group classes, and nicotine replacement therapy.
Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I)
The gold standard for insomnia treatment, this behavioral therapy involves meeting with a specially trained psychologist to modify behaviors and perceptions that contribute to chronic difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep. Our therapists often work closely with the specialists at Stanford’s Sleep Medicine Center.
Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR)
We offer an 8-week course to help people manage chronic stress and anxiety using a variety of research-based mindfulness techniques.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
We use evidence-based, skills-focused psychotherapy to treat depression, anxiety and chronic stress, and make healthy lifestyle changes to prevent cardiovascular disease or slow its progression. We work with you to develop an action plan, personalized for your needs and lifestyle. The goal is to make changes that you can maintain over the long term.
Clinical Trials
Clinical trials evaluate new medical approaches, devices, drugs, and other treatments. As a Stanford Health Care patient, you may be eligible to participate in open clinical trials.
Open trials refer to studies that are currently recruiting participants or that may recruit participants in the near future. Closed trials are not currently enrolling, but similar studies may open in the future.
To learn more about the clinical trials we offer, contact NAME at PHONE NUMBER.
What Are Lifestyle Factors for Heart Disease?
Our Clinics
Our expert cardiologists offer an integrated approach to patient care, including understanding cardiovascular risk factors, developing nutrition plans, and providing lifestyle counseling.
2nd Floor Room A260
Stanford, CA 94305
Phone: 650-725-5909 Getting Here
To schedule an appointment, please call: 650-723-6459