Jane Seymour Opens Up About Heart ‘Wake-Up Call’ Amid Family Health Battles
What To Know
- Jane Seymour has become an American Heart Association ambassador, motivated by her family’s history with heart disease and her desire to raise awareness.
- She emphasizes the importance of managing stress, getting adequate sleep, and regularly monitoring heart health through doctor visits and medication when necessary.
- Seymour credits her mother’s resilience and belief in finding purpose as essential to longevity and happiness.
Emmy Award-winning actress Jane Seymour has teamed up with the American Heart Association to raise awareness about heart disease, a condition with which she has a personal connection.
Speaking to People about her new role as an American Heart Association ambassador, the Harry Wild star revealed, “My mother had heart disease. My father died of heart disease. My sisters and I, we all need to watch our cholesterol and we take statins.”
Seymour shared some eye-opening statistics, revealing, “More women die from [heart disease] than men. It’s the number one cause of death for women, more than all the cancers put together. One in 5 women in the U.S. will have a stroke in their lifetime… I think it’s a wake-up call.”
The Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman alum opened up about how she takes care of her body, referring to it as being “like a car… It’s my vehicle for as long as I’m able to live.”
Her focus is on reducing stress and getting enough sleep. “I do everything I can to not stress or to handle stress. I sleep eight hours a night,” she shared. “When I’m filming and I’m starting at 4 in the morning, I will set the alarm during the day and I tell myself whether I actually sleep or not, I will lie down and attempt to sleep and meditate to sleep.”
Seymour, who will turn 75 in February 2026, urged people to “go to your doctor” and “find out what your blood pressure is… if you have clogged arteries, cholesterol issues. If there’s a medication that’s going to help you, make sure you stay on the medication.”
The Kominsky Method actress credited her mother, who also inspired her Open Hearts Foundation. “My mother had it right. She said, ‘If you have purpose, you will live a longer, happier life,” Seymour stated, noting how her mother survived three and a half years in a concentration camp in World War II and was a Japanese prisoner of war in Indonesia.
“She said, ‘In life, everyone has challenges. If you can accept it, which is the hardest thing to do in life, open your heart and reach out to help someone else, you will find purpose and purpose is key,'” Seymour added. “Purpose is the key to longevity and happiness.”
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