·¬ÇÑÊÓƵ

When Dr. Tara Narula greets her New York City cardiology patients with a cheerful “How are you?” they rarely mention their rising blood pressure or confess to not exercising.

Instead, she often hears, “I am massively stressed.”

They’re overwhelmed juggling work and family, caring for an ailing spouse or parents, or coping with a lost job or broken marriage. On top of that, they might still be reeling from being told they have heart failure, a partially blocked artery or other serious diagnosis.

To Narula, a focus on psychological well-being and teaching patients how to handle the pressures of everyday life is often the “missing link” in healthcare. Reducing stress doesn’t just lower blood pressure and combat inflammation, she said. Mentally healthy patients are also more likely to exercise, eat right, avoid smoking and make other healthy choices.

It’s why, in addition to recommending medication and any necessary procedures, she also often discusses with patients meditation, mindfulness, social support and other stress management tools.

“We just aren't doing a good enough job in this country teaching people how bad stress is, and then teaching them how to counteract it,” said Narula, who practices at Northwell Health’s Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan.

Narula has devoted her 22-year medical career to informing — and empowering — people to make healthy choices. In addition to being a full-time practicing cardiologist, she’s built a career in medical journalism over 12 years.

She has served as senior medical correspondent at CBS News, CNN medical correspondent and NBC News medical contributor, and is now chief medical correspondent for ABC News. She also recently authored “The Healing Power of Resilience,” a book that explores the mind-body connection and how to change a stress response to a resilient one.

For nearly 20 years, Narula has volunteered her expertise to the ·¬ÇÑÊÓƵ, amplifying its message as an ambassador for the Go Red for Women® initiative and a national spokesperson. On June 23, she’ll be honored with the Association’s Voice of the Mission Award at its National Volunteer Awards ceremony in Irving, Texas.

“My whole mission in life is to see how many people I can reach,” Narula, 50, said. “With my medical office, I can reach 18 people a day. With television and through the work the Heart Association does, I can reach millions.”

·¬ÇÑÊÓƵ CEO Nancy Brown said Narula’s impact as an ambassador and an advocate is inspiring.

“Dr. Narula’s powerful work spans across many dimensions of women’s health, including prevention, mental health and resilience,” Brown said. “She is a guiding light as she advocates for everyone, everywhere to engage with our message of health and hope.”

Communicating about health topics has been as important to Narula’s mission as caring for her patients.

"Television, the internet and social media have been as much a tool for me as my stethoscope,” she said. “I hope to give people honest, understandable, fact-based information to care for themselves and their families."

One of Narula’s key messages: Emotional resilience can be built.

It’s a lesson first gleaned from her parents. Her father, Dr. Onkar Narula, immigrated to the United States from India with $50. He worked hard to become a cardiologist and became well-known as one of the founders of the field of cardiac electrophysiology, the study of the heart’s electrical system. Her mother, Joy Narula, put herself through nursing school.

“I saw resilience my whole life,” Narula said. “My father always told my brother and I, ‘Whatever happens to you, you can get through it.’”

Growing up in Miami, she enjoyed accompanying her father on his weekend hospital rounds. As a hospital volunteer in high school, she observed a heart transplant and thought, “This is really what I love.”

After graduating from Stanford University with degrees in economics and biology, she initially veered away from medicine and founded her own small business, Sun Juice Smoothies in Miami. Although her business was a success, her love for medicine called her back.

While in medical school at the University of Southern California, she saw again the need for emotional resilience when she lost vision in the lower part of her right eye. Doctors thought it might signal a stroke or multiple sclerosis but, after years of follow-up testing, never discovered the cause. While her vision never worsened, the ordeal left her with a deep appreciation for her patients’ fears and worries.

“That was the lowest and most scared I’ve ever been,” Narula said. “I really had to call on that sense of ‘I'm going to get through this.’”

During her residency at the Brigham and Women's Hospital, a major teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, she decided to specialize in cardiology and completed her cardiology training at Weill Cornell/NewYork-Presbyterian. While cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, she liked that patients could often improve dramatically with lifestyle changes, procedures and medication.

With 80% of cardiovascular disease cases estimated to be preventable, Narula makes working out, eating healthy, getting good sleep and managing her own stress a daily priority — even with a packed schedule.

She wakes up at 5 a.m. to squeeze in a heart-pumping incline walk on the treadmill, in addition to regular strength training. Several days a week, she’s on the set of ABC’s Good Morning America by 8 a.m. to discuss the latest medical news, and then heads to her office to see patients.

She’s also associate director of Women's Heart Health for Northwell Health's Western Region and Lenox Hill Hospital, director of communications for Northwell’s Katz Institute for Women’s Health, and a professor of cardiovascular medicine at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell.

Evenings and weekends are spent with her husband, David Cangello, who’s a plastic surgeon, and their two daughters, Siena and Layla, and their golden retriever puppy Harley.

“It's not easy for any of us who do it,” Narula says of finding time to exercise. “But you really have to make it part of your routine and just stick with it.”

In addition to working out, Narula manages her stress by reminding herself of what she’s grateful for, listening to music, enjoying nature, or taking slow, deep breaths to calm her nervous system. She also sees a therapist to help work through life stressors — something she highly recommends to her patients.

She hopes her book will inspire medical establishments to invest in resilience training programs to give patients the support they need after a diagnosis. Resilience training, she said, should become as common as recommendations for physical therapy, nutrition classes, cardiac rehab, or smoking cessation programs.

“Resilience is a light that helps us find the path out of the darkness and thrive after whatever life throws our way,” Narula said.

“I want people to enjoy their lives, to have meaning and purpose and value and joy,” she added. “If my voice can help someone be there for their family, or to just simply have a better quality of life because they're taking better care of themselves, then that's amazing.”