February is National Heart Health month, and while we usually associate February with Valentine's Day, there's a lot more to our heart health than waiting for our crush to walk by.

We know the usual advice for heart health:

• Eat whole foods low in fat and high in fiber
• Exercise regularly. Aim for at least 2 ½ hours of moderate-intensity aerobic activity a week (or 75 minutes of vigorous activity) and two or more days a week of muscle-strengthening
• Don't smoke
• Maintain a healthy weight
• Decrease sugar consumption
• Lower stress

These are all great tips for physically improving your heart health, but did you know that social connection plays a factor too? In fact, research has shown that lack of meaningful human connection can damage the cardiovascular system as much as smoking or obesity!

If you want a "2-for-1" deal for your heart, pick an activity that can provide a physical benefit as well as social connection.

A great activity to celebrate the month of love and to strengthen your heart is ballroom dancing. Ballroom offers a combination of low-impact aerobic activity and muscle endurance, which makes it a fantastic cardiovascular workout, improving circulation, regulating blood pressure, lowering cholesterol, supporting arterial flexibility, and lowering stress levels. In fact, a 2016 study published in the Circulation journal proved that regular dancing can reduce death risk from heart disease by up to 46%.

And, extra bonus, ballroom dance is a social activity. Dancing with a partner—even someone you just met—forces the human connection that is so important to both our physical and mental wellbeing. Plus, it’s fun! And let's be honest, exercise is so much easier when it doesn't feel like you're exercising at all.

And we want to keep our hearts healthy.

Not just to live longer, but to support us for all those little moments in life that make our hearts smile—everyday joys like a beautiful sunset, a baby’s laugh, the company of a friend, a divine meal, walking on the beach, or feeling those flutters when you see your crush.

Because those crushes, whether they're true love or not, are what makes the story of our life interesting!

Meda Rigatti, a resident here at Coburg Village, remembers her first crush. She was 14 and in junior high science class when she was paired with Michael as a lab partner. “He was an adorable young man,” says Meda. “He was tall, had blond curly hair in ringlets all over his head, blue eyes. He was just the love of my life at 14!”

They dissected a frog together for a week and a half. Meda was so smitten, she even wrote their names over and over in her notebook. One day, while they sat next to each other chatting, she thought all her hopes were coming true when he stroked her arm and gave her goosebumps. But then he said, “I wish I had hair like that on my arms.”

“It broke my heart,” says Meda. “I went home and wanted to shave my arms. My mother said, ‘No, no, no, don’t do that!’ That was the end of my first crush. I got very quickly uncrushed because I was a hairy monkey!” she laughs.

She felt like she’d never be loved by anyone, but it all worked out. Eventually, she met her husband, and they had a great marriage for 54 years.

Rich Medved, also a resident here at Coburg, met his first crush, Alicia, when he was ten and she was nine. Rich and his family had just moved into a garden apartment in Queens, NY. Alicia moved into the building a couple of days after, and his whole world changed.

Up until that point, he'd only been friends with boys. They always did physical things together like playing sports or climbing trees. But after meeting Alicia, his after-school time included all kinds of activities. They started by walking to school together every day but soon shared their free time as well. “She would read to me, which I thought was really wonderful because I didn’t really care to read in those days,” he says. They'd roller skate and go for walks while listening to music on a portable tube-battery radio and sing and talk before they’d go home and dance. They became very close friends and were together most of the time for the next two years.

But then one day, Rich found out Alicia and her family were moving to North Carolina. “I still remember that orange and black moving van leaving the front of the house and her in the back seat of the car waving goodbye as they drove away. I remember being absolutely devastated for two years,” Rich recalls. “I had no idea that you could feel that kind of a closeness at such a young age.”

They lost touch, and he thought he'd never see her again...until 50 years later.

Rich and his wife were driving around New Jersey where his wife had grown up. They decided to take a walk around her old neighborhood when he noticed a woman heading down the hill towards them. There was something about her that seemed familiar. Taking a chance, he called out, “Alicia?”

The woman turned. “Yes. Do I know you?”

He told her who he was, and they had a great discussion. Come to find out, Alicia had moved back north because of her husband's job and ended up working in Manhattan.

She’d been a part of his life for a short time, but his friendship with her had major effects on him—almost as much as his beloved wife whom he was married to for over 50 years before she passed away. Now, he's with the crush he met here at Coburg Village. “I've had four real crushes in my life,” he says, “but Alicia was definitely my first crush.”

As we celebrate all things heart this month, be sure to get out and do something your heart will thank you for—whether it's with your crush or not!

Happy February!