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If you’re looking at information related to heart surgery and recovery, chances are you’ve heard about heart pillows (also known as chest or cough pillows). These are commonly handed out to heart surgery patients, but it’s not often discussed whether these are actually helpful for recovery.

Heart pillows are meant to give patients something to hold to their chest when they need to cough or sneeze or to try and help alleviate some pain.

So the question is: are heart pillows truly a good addition to surgery recovery plans?

You probably never thought you'd have to look up "how to cough and sneeze," but the truth is that these simple, everyday actions can get a little more complicated after heart surgery. Here's everything you need to know, plus a few extra tips to keep you healthy and comfortable.

Don't Avoid It

It can be tempting to avoid a cough or sneeze after heart surgery. The truth is that these actions aren't comfortable. At first, they can even be a little scary.

It's important to remember, though, that your body knows best. Coughing is vital to the healing process because it helps clear the lungs and prevent pneumonia.

Holding back a sneeze can be more uncomfortable (and damaging to your health) than simply sneezing. That's why you should keep right on doing these things; you need to find a way to make them easier, more comfortable, and a little less alarming. 

There are all kinds of things to learn, know, and understand before open-heart surgery. Perhaps one of the most important is how long your recovery might take, but the truth is that there's no single answer. Read on to find out how to calculate open-heart surgery recovery time.

Recovery Variables

When it comes to preparing for open-heart surgery, most patients have a lot of questions, especially about recovery. However, recovery time isn't static; it's different for every patient, and a lot of things need to be factored in before you can get an accurate estimate.

Here are a few things to consider when asking about your recovery time.

When you think about what makes you you, what is it that first comes to mind? Is it your physical features, like the specific shade of your eyes that you've never seen mimicked anywhere else? Is it a special skill? Is it some complex combination of the books you've read, the songs you've heard, the people you've met, and the things you've done? Whatever comes to mind when you think about yourself as an individual, it's likely not the simple yet incredibly important act of breathing.

Breathing is an important part of every life, yet it is often overlooked as an automatic and unnoticed detail--but after surgery, that can all change.