I AM YOU is hosted by Nitza I. Alvarez, MD, FACC — board-certified cardiologist, Women’s Heart Specialist, and bestselling author. Each episode shares real conversations and expert insights that empower women to understand their heart health, listen to their bodies, and step fully into their role as the CEO of their own health.

In this deeply personal and eye-opening episode, Dr. Alvarez welcomes a very special guest — Dr. María Isabel Alvarez-Torres, a clinical psychologist specializing in trauma and emotional health… and her sister. Together, they explore the powerful and often overlooked connection between the emotional heart and the physical heart.

Through the story of their mother — a strong, resilient woman who carried the weight of family, responsibility, and unspoken stress — this episode reveals how years of emotional endurance, suppressed trauma, and chronic stress can quietly shape women’s cardiovascular health. What begins as “just stress” can ultimately surface as heart disease, broken-heart syndrome (Takotsubo cardiomyopathy), high blood pressure, or overwhelming anxiety.

Dr. Alvarez-Torres explains how chronic stress rewires the nervous system, how trauma — including Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) — can leave lasting biological imprints, and why many women normalize survival mode without realizing the toll it takes on their hearts. Together, the sisters unpack why women are especially vulnerable, how multitasking and perfectionism fuel chronic stress, and how the body eventually demands to be heard.

This episode also offers hope and tools: learning to pause, recognize stress signals, regulate the nervous system, release stored emotional energy, and seek trauma-informed care when needed. Healing the heart is not just about medication or test results — it’s about compassion, self-awareness, boundaries, and giving yourself permission to rest, feel, and receive support.

This powerful conversation is a reminder that you cannot fully heal the physical heart without honoring the emotional one — and that becoming the CEO of your own health means caring for both.

🎧 Listen.

💬 Share with the women you love.

💪 And join the movement to change how women experience heart health.

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