How to Improve Your Heart Health with the Right Mindset, Diet, and Exercise
Your heart is a vital organ that works most diligently throughout your life. For someone who isn’t crazy about the idea of having his life curtailed by a few years, investing an effort into maintaining heart health is a commendable decision. Ask someone who has been unfortunate enough to acquire a cardiovascular disease and he would tell you the importance of having a proactive approach to keeping your heart working healthily. Such diseases are not only known to ruin the overall quality of your life since you are put at the mercy of multiple precautions that you must take on a day to day basis, but it is also a huge financial burden for the patient.
The good news, however, is that maintaining your heart health doesn’t necessarily require you to visit the doctor as part of your routine. You don’t need to hire a coach or a professional for that matter to show you the way. There are plenty of tips and strategies that you can use all by yourself which will ensure a healthy heart for you. Owing to the importance of this organ and how diligently it works for you, reciprocating a little bit of care is the least that you can do for it.
The health of your heart is largely dependent on [restrict] your lifestyle. This has an implication that your authority over ensuring a healthier heart is more pronounced than you would like to think. Here are the top 7 tips that you can follow to promote your heart health and probably add a few extra years to your life.
Get Up And Exercise
It is highly likely that you must have guessed this one already. Talking about heart health and not bringing the role of physical activity and exercise to the debate is next to impossible. It’s weird how the majority of us familiar of the benefits that regular exercise has to offer and yet we find it difficult to get up that couch and hit the gym at least three days a week.
Regular physical activity has been scientifically proven to help with lowering blood pressure and removing the risk of hypertension. It further helps to keep your weight in check in order to protect you from the harms of obesity that directly casts its impact to hinder the optimal functioning of your heart.
It’s imperative to state here that for someone who finds it hard to join a gym and follow a proper workout regime, simpler exercises like brisk walking or jogging etc. that can be practiced at the comfort of their homes for a few minutes every day can deliver the same results in terms of promoting your heart health.
Fight Obesity
It has already been mentioned that the harms of obesity are the most pronounced on the optimal functioning of your heart. If you wish to live your life to the fullest and not succumb to a weakened heart at a later stage of your life, it is indispensable that you work actively towards fighting obesity. We have already mentioned a prominent component of this strategy, that is, indulging in physical activity as part of the routine. However, there is another part of it that is just as effective in promoting your heart health and that is your diet.
Yes, that is fried food tastes delicious. Who wouldn’t want to stick to the canned food owing to the convenience it offers while being a treat to the taste buds? But here’s a bummer. If you are not eating healthy or organic, it is just a matter of time before those extra layers of fat start to show up on your body. That’ll be the first sign that you are headed towards heart disease in the long run.
Optimizing your diet for a healthier heart is easy. All you have to do is incorporate vegetables and fruits in your diet, span out your meals in smaller portions that you consume at five to six different times of the day, and cut back on the high fat or sugar enriched diet.
Mindful Choice Between Taste Vs. Health
This is perhaps going to sound like Sophie’s choice. Remember that the only reason why you put salt in your food is to satisfy your taste buds. Salt gives flavor and taste to your food. This is perhaps the reason why it is turning into a trend to cook salt enriched foods in the name of making them taste better.
We hate to be the bearer of the bad news, but this has to stop as well if you are someone who takes his heart health any seriously. Salt or sodium, in particular, can never be a friend of your vital organ owing to the fact that it plays a crucial role in increasing the blood pressure. A consistent state of hypertension puts you at the risk of cardiovascular diseases including the likes of Myocardial Infarction (Heart Attack) and strokes which can turn out to be fatal in nature.
As per the recommendations of the American Heart Association as well as the ones highlighted by the Center for Disease Control (CDC), consuming more than 1500 mg of sodium in a day must be avoided to keep your heart healthy and have it function optimally for you.
Avoid Stress
The likes of stress and excessive pressure is commonly linked to your mental health. While it is entirely true since such an environment puts you at the risk of developing a common mental disorder such as depression, it is important to realize that the effects penetrate deeper into your heart health as well. If that wasn’t the case, you would never hear of someone having a heart attack upon receiving distressing news.
Doing everything in your power to avoid excessive stress and keep your nerves calm optimizes your mental health while promoting the health of your heart in the meantime. For this reason, trying the ancient Buddhist practices of meditation and mindfulness for just a few minutes on a daily basis can turn out to be highly effective.
Part Ways From Smoking
Let us debunk another of the great misconception that tobacco consumption is only injurious for your lungs. There have been scientific studies that have categorically proven that smoking tobacco increases your risk of acquiring a cardiovascular disease in the long run as well. As if an amplified risk of developing cancer wasn’t enough, now you know that you are essentially jeopardizing the health of your heart as well just because you can’t distract yourself from the thought of smoking a cigarette.
Similar is the case for alcohol. Excessive consumption, that is defined as more than 3 drinks in a day, pushes a step closer to hypertension. Once you fall pretty to high blood pressure, it will slowly weaken the state of your heart until eventually, it cuts your life short by a few years.
Going To Bed Early
Blame it on the work responsibility or the curse of social media, this generation is no longer getting the required hours of sleep in the night. Sleeping for any less than seven hours on a regular basis doesn’t only affect your cognitive abilities, it creates a gigantic hindrance for maintaining and sustaining the health of your heart as well.
Research has shown that teenagers and adults who were habitual of sleeping for less than seven hours were at a greater risk of having a higher concentration of calcium in their arteries that is widely accepted as the initial symptom of an imminent cardiovascular disorder.
Make Time For Yourself
The happier and more content you are about your life, the better is going to be your heart health. It’s as simple as that. Therefore, it’s recommended to make time for yourself and indulge in activities that you truly love. Building social connections and spending more time with the close ones to share your experiences, talk about your thoughts, feelings, and emotions, and having a good laugh can also health a great deal in promoting your heart health. You can take it for granted. As long as it doesn’t hurt anyone, whatever it is that makes you happy surely plays a role in maintaining the health of your heart.
Final Words
So, there you go. These were the top 7 DIY tips and strategies that you can use at home to promote your heart health. Be honest with us, did you find them difficult at all? Isn’t it amazing to know how simple it is to take good care of this vital organ? Now that you have the information at your disposal, we sincerely hope that you will put an effort into optimizing the health of your heart. Keep it in mind that a healthy heart has the potential to change your entire life for the better. All you have to do is start implementing the tips mentioned above and you would surely be able to see the benefits of a healthy heart for yourself. [/restrict]
