News reached me over the weekend of a former friend and colleague who unexpectedly passed away due to cardiac disease. He was only in his late 40s, an avid gym attendee, healthy eater, and had no symptoms prior to his untimely demise. He leaves behind a partner and children who will mourn him deeply. Sadly, this is far from the first time I have come across someone passing away in this manner.
This situation is becoming more familiar to those of us in business in the UK. Most of us already have a personal reference point. A colleague, a peer, a family member. What we might not realise is that many senior leaders are operating with a mental model of the heart that is decades out of date, and that misunderstanding could be contributing to risk factors for heart disease. Here is a 5-minute read that might just make a difference.
Why does Heart Health matter?
In the UK, cardiovascular disease accounts for around 26% of all deaths each year, roughly 170,000 people. That equates to around 460 deaths a day, or one every three minutes. More than 8 million people in the UK are currently living with a heart or circulatory condition.¹
After decades of decline, deaths from cardiovascular disease among working age adults in the UK aged 20 to 64 have started rising again, increasing by around 18% between 2019 and 2023. That is 18,693 deaths in 2019, rising to 21,975 in 2023, averaging around 420 working age deaths every week across the UK.²
Why is this happening?
To start answering that question, we first need to correct a fundamental misunderstanding many of us have about our hearts.
For a long time, the heart was described in overly simple terms. We all remember the biology lesson at school. The heart is described as an isolated four chambered pump that pushes blood through the body. As long as the numbers around beats per minute, blood pressure, and cholesterol look good, we should be OK. Right? That description is not entirely wrong, but it is incomplete and undersells the complexity of the heart, which is a magnificent feat of natural engineering.
Modern cardiology understands the heart is a far more sophisticated, dynamic organ, integrated and regulated by other systems. Its muscle fibres are arranged in a complex helical pattern, a structure that allows the heart to twist, shorten, and recoil with each beat. This spiral architecture makes the heart remarkably efficient, enhancing both the ejection of blood and the filling of the chambers between beats. It also makes the heart highly adaptable and able to calibrate its function to meet the needs of the body.
Blood flow through the body depends on precise pressure gradients generated by the heart and the elastic properties of blood vessels, all of which are finely tuned and regulated by the nervous system. The heart does not work alone. Its functions are integrated with the brain, blood vessels, lungs, kidneys, and hormones. Flow emerges from coordination, not brute force, to allow our blood to traverse the 100,000 km of blood vessels that we each have.
The heart is also electrically active. Each beat is initiated by precisely timed electrical signals, which can be measured at the skin as an electrocardiogram. These signals reflect the heart’s rhythm and health, and they interact continuously with the autonomic nervous system. Emotional states such as stress, calm, fear, or connection measurably influence heart rate, rhythm variability, and blood pressure.
Within the heart is also a small network of specialised neurons that help regulate its rhythm and respond to signals from the brain and body. This intrinsic cardiac nervous system allows the heart to adapt beat by beat to physical and emotional demands. This local control system is deeply interconnected with our wider nervous system. When the nervous system is stressed, it literally changes the way our heart thinks and acts.
We should be viewing our hearts as a living, responsive organ at the centre of a complex biological network, sensitive to physiology, emotion, and environment alike. Its function and health sit hand in hand with that of our nervous system, and research has shown that psychological stress, trauma, social connection, sleep, movement, and breathing patterns all affect cardiovascular health.
Why are things getting worse?
We are living in a time of accelerating change in the UK, with demands on businesses increasing and all levels being asked to deliver more with less, in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Despite workplace wellbeing initiatives, employee wellbeing is falling while work related stress and mental health strain rise.
A five year UK study by Johns Hopkins University and Great Place To Work, published in 2025, analysed data from over 300,000 UK employees and found a steady decline in wellbeing since 2020. It reported that 2024 to 2025 saw a 24% increase in work related stress, depression, or anxiety compared to the previous year, with 964,000 UK workers experiencing such issues.³
Given the connection between stress and heart disease, a picture starts emerging of one factor that may be contributing to the increase in cardiac disease within the UK working population. At this point, we need to start looking at wellbeing in the workplace not as a tick box exercise, but as pivotal to our long-term health as well as our immediate productivity.
What can we do?
Self-Awareness and Neurological Regulation
The first place to start is with ourselves. Improving our interoception by checking in with our bodies on a regular basis allows us to notice when we are exhibiting signs of stress and to act on those signals. This creates a healthier balance between sympathetic stress and parasympathetic recovery systems.
We can learn how to master our own nervous systems, shifting out of perpetual fight or flight and into a regulated state that supports clearer thinking and more stable physiology. Easy ways of introducing this into the office include pausing to bring awareness to the breath, slowing it down and drawing oxygen down into the belly. Labelling emotions as they arise and learning to work with them rather than pushing them aside. Grounded movement such as conscious walking or yoga, alongside other mindfulness techniques, or even humming as you walk along the hall. It all makes a difference.
Checking in regularly with our body, also means early warning signs which might otherwise get ignored are noticed and acted upon. For example, unexplained or extreme fatigue, shortness of breath during light activity or when lying flat, jaw/neck/back pain, swollen feet and ankles or cold sweats can all be early indicators of cardiac disease.
If we start creating short pauses in our own day to become aware of how our body is running, we can also encourage others to do the same. A moment at the start of a meeting. A pause at lunchtime rather than rushing a sandwich while checking emails. A quick body scan while making a cup of tea. You don’t have to spend hours on this. Tie it to something you already do each day, and it will become a habit in no time. A regular few minutes here and there all adds up.
Connecting with Others
Loneliness is now recognised as a cardiovascular risk factor, comparable to smoking or obesity.⁵ With busier schedules and more hybrid and remote working across the UK, workers are becoming increasingly isolated. For humans who are inherently social, this poses significant challenges.
Making time to connect with colleagues does not just foster better collaboration and innovation, it also produces oxytocin, which has cardioprotective effects. A placebo controlled double blind study by Heinrichs and colleagues demonstrated that oxytocin, particularly when paired with social support, suppresses cortisol and reduces subjective stress responses during acute stress exposure.⁴
Taking a few moments to connect with a colleague and creating regular opportunities for social connection around work can benefit everyone. Communication skills also matter here, particularly when it comes to inspiring others in the cause of shared purpose. A felt sense of purpose alters stress physiology, and purpose driven leadership protects teams in ways that extend beyond engagement.
The Working Environment
The heart responds not just to what you think, but to where you are. The impact of the physical environment you work in may be subtle, but it is cumulative. Lighting, sound, air quality, and movement patterns influence heart rate, blood pressure, and hormone output. Many modern working environments, while efficient, promote chronic vigilance.
Reviewing a work environment not just from a traditional health and safety perspective, but with the nervous system in mind, can lead to increased productivity in the short term and meaningful long-term health benefits. Introducing plants, curves, and softer textures into working spaces can make a significant difference.
The Bottom Line
If you are too busy to look after yourself, your heart already knows.
Looking after your health does not have to come at the expense of productivity. Many of the practices that protect the long-term health of you and your team also support sustained performance and decision making when pressure rises and demands increase.
What is clear is that it is time to stop treating “wellbeing” as a trendy buzzword or a box ticking exercise. To turn these trends around, sustainable practices and policies must be integrated across UK business systems if we want workforces to thrive today and continue doing so tomorrow.
For more information on looking after your heart, please visit:
- British Heart Foundation
https://www.bhf.org.uk - American Heart Association
https://www.heart.org - National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)
https://www.nice.org.uk - HeartMath Institute
https://www.heartmath.org
References
- British Heart Foundation. UK facts and figures on heart and circulatory disease.
https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/news-from-the-bhf/contact-the-press-office/facts-and-figures - British Heart Foundation. Cardiovascular mortality trends in working age adults in the UK.
https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/news-from-the-bhf/news-archive/2025/may/worst-start-to-decade-heart-disease-50-years-bhf-strategy-launch - Johns Hopkins University and Great Place To Work®. UK workplace wellbeing trends report 2025.
https://www.greatplacetowork.co.uk/resources/workplace-wellbeing-report-2025 - Heinrichs, M., Baumgartner, T., Kirschbaum, C., & Ehlert, U. (2003). Social support and oxytocin interact to suppress cortisol and subjective responses to psychosocial stress. Biological Psychiatry, 54(12), 1389–1398.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14675803/ - Valtorta, N. K., Kanaan, M., Gilbody, S., Ronzi, S., & Hanratty, B. (2016). Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for coronary heart disease and stroke: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Heart, 102(13), 1009–1016.
https://heart.bmj.com/content/102/13/1009