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About seven years ago, number three son of my parents had a heart attack and, for two minutes or so, was dead. He was 38, in spectacular shape (for a guy who’s 5’5”, a 54” chest, always ate properly, worked out, no smoking/drinking). He’s since recovered, and if possible, lives a better life than he once did. At work ever since, when coworkers might complain of some small genuine or imagined slight in conversation, he would start off by asking, “You know what kills me?” And invariably his audience would say, “what?” My brother would finish: “heart attacks,” smile, and walk away. ;)

I know this hasn’t much to do with your good post, but it reminded me of his doing this. Life is short, and precious.

At work ever since, when coworkers might complain of some small genuine or imagined slight in conversation, he would start off by asking, “You know what kills me?” And invariably his audience would say, “what?” My brother would finish: “heart attacks,” smile, and walk away. ;)

My favorite thing to do is, when I'm cracking jokes, if someone happens to say, "You kill me!", I always look at them strangely, cock my head at an odd angle, and say, "No...not YET...."

A direct correlation has been found between people with very large chest sizes and heart attacks.

Some researchers believe that the large chest sizes are caused by internal pressures forcing the chest walls outward and those same forces affect the heart by squeezing it and obstructing blood flow.

I have always had a fairly large chest size of 48” back while I was in the army and I was diagnosed back then with severe cardiac arrhythmia's. Those arrhythmia's are so severe that I do have a service connected disability because of them.

They have also lead to be being declared totally disabled and eligible for Social Security disability.

Among those cardiac problems is a Right Bundle Branch problem which varies from day to day. Some days it is present and some days it is not. It has been diagnosed as bot incomplete and complete.

I do play all brass musical instruments and I was in army bands during my service time. One discipline we had to practice was breath control which was to develop the ability to take fewer but deeper breathes.

I have noticed that when I breathe very deeply, it does affect the blood flow and I can actually hear the difference including missed beats.

I suspect that the expansion of the lungs within the confines of the chest may be compressing the heart as well as the arteries thereby restricting the blood flow.