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Heart diseases sound daunting, as many common factors can lead to them, but studies worldwide show that they can be prevented. Some lifestyle changes can make your heart happy and strong and keep the doctor away.
Keep reading to learn 10 effective yet easy habits on how to keep your heart healthy.
The heart is one of the most vital organs of our body. Stress and present-day lifestyle often take a toll on our health. Surprisingly, following a few healthy habits can improve our heart health. Let’s take a closer look into it!
Eating the right food is essential when you are trying to keep your heart in good shape. Here are some pointers on what to choose:
Include Fruits and Vegetables in Your Diet: Unprocessed fruits and vegetables provide your body with plenty of dietary fibre and essential vitamins and minerals.
Add Whole Grains to Your Table: Whole-grain foods are filled with nutrients and dietary fibres. Therefore, they are perfect for your blood sugar levels.
Keep Your Portion Size in Check: Avoid stuffing your stomach each time you eat. Instead, use smaller plates to build this crucial habit.
Avoid Unhealthy Fats: Avoid saturated and trans fats; it will help you by reducing your blood cholesterol to normal levels.
Control Your Salt Intake: Lower your consumption of salt to reduce high blood pressure.
Opt for Low-fat Protein: Fish, lean meat, poultry, low-fat dairy products, soy products, and tree nuts are some healthier protein sources.
However, only eating healthy might not be enough. You have to breathe healthy too.
It would be best to avoid smoking, be it active or passive. Quitting tobacco can be one of the best things for your heart health and, in this case, your blood vessels. Here are some mandatory to-dos to quit smoking:
Identify Your Trigger: If you can identify what triggers the craving, you can avoid it by replacing it with something harmless.
Do Not Get Trapped in ‘Just this Time:Thinking that after 'just this time' you will quit, is a typical rut that a smoker gets entangled in. So stay cautious and avoid it altogether.
Try New Ways to Release Stress: Many people use smoking as a means of stress relief. So, quitting smoking can cause a lot of stress. Prepare beforehand with another helpful relaxation method to make the necessary change.
Find Ways to Avoid Second-hand Smoking: One may try to avoid places that allow smoking. Furthermore, one can try to convince people around him or her to refrain from smoking.
After smoking is dealt with, one more thing to cut down on is alcohol consumption.
Alcoholism directly affects one's heart health by damaging its muscles, making its rhythms irregular, increasing blood pressure and so on. There is no safe limit to drinking alcohol, so losing the habit is the only way. The following tips can be of help:
Identification of Triggers: Once again, finding out triggers is an essential step towards recovery. If you become aware of your triggers, you can plan ahead and find solutions to resist the temptation.
Involve Your Family: If you plan on quitting, let your family and loved ones know about it. This way, you will have the promise to keep and someone to be accountable to.
Furthermore, your decision can inspire others to quit drinking too.
Avoid Bad Company: When one wants to quit, avoiding the company of people who can influence him or her to drink is very important. Finding new people who also want to get rid of the habit is the best way to go.
Find Ways to Remind Yourself About the ‘why': Reminding yourself about 'why' you are quitting alcohol will be necessary for moments of crisis. Visualise the situations beforehand and create ways to stay on the healthy path.
However, eating healthy, avoiding smoking, and drinking would only have the intended effect if you sleep plentifully.
A good amount of quality sleep, by itself, can prevent a plethora of diseases. Matthew Walker, the author of Why We Sleep, advises the following ways one can have better sleep:
Follow a Strict Sleep Schedule: Following a strict sleep routine will keep your internal sleep-wake cycle intact, which will help the healing process work properly.
Get Rid of Stimulants: Avoid stimulants like nicotine and caffeine, which can disrupt the sleep system resulting in disturbance of natural bodily functions.
Relax Before Going to Bed: Reading a book, listening to music, meditation, light stretching, or, whatever relaxes you, try it before going to sleep.
Keep Your Stomach Light: Choose small snacks over a heavy meal to keep your stomach light before bed.
Avoid Intensive Workouts Before Sleep Hours: After an intense workout session, the brain takes time to get to a relaxed state, which can, in turn, deteriorate sleep quality.
Take a Hot Bath: A hot bath before bed can drop your body temperature and make you more relaxed for sleep.
A good diet and a healthy sleep schedule by themselves are great for your heart. However, tracking your blood is equally important to give total prevention assurance.
Getting time-to-time check-ups is one of the best tips for a healthy heart. With the test results, you get the power to manage your blood and prevent disease. Here are some relevant tests that will measure:
Benefits of Keeping Track of Your Blood-work
It's noteworthy, however, that your physical improvement depends significantly on your stress management capability.
A happy mind makes a happy heart. Therefore, if you learn how to handle stress correctly, your biology will react in a positive way. Here are a few ways one can react to stress factors:
Be Proactive: It starts with recognising circumstances that you do not have any influence on and finding factors that you have an influence on. It will help if you focus on what you can control and do not let anything else bother you.
Avoid What You Can Avoid: Sometimes people engage in stressful situations out of habit. Please make a point to take note of such instances and avoid them in the future. It can make a big difference.
Face Challenges Head-on: Not all stressful situations are bad. Some of them help you grow and be a better person. Most of the time, avoiding such good stresses results in bad stresses.
Connect With People: Having fulfilling relationships is better for your heart-health and the whole being.
Being stress-free is much more nuanced at its core. It takes time, but it is worth it. However, there is also a way to being stress-free without such intellectual effort, which is meaningful daily activities.
Your body needs a proper amount of physical activity to function optimally. Frequent activities that result in a mild increase in your heart rate will improve cholesterol levels and blood pressure and keep your weight in check. So let's look at some ideas on how to make your day an active one:
Engage With Household Works: Doing household chores can help you relax by letting your mind unwind and giving your heart a gentle workout.
Try Dancing: You can try dancing while listening to music if you do not do it already. If you feel embarrassed, do it behind closed doors. However done, it will do the work.
Enrol in a Sports Club: Enrolling in a sports club, however intensive, will add value to your daily life. Activity and fun will be automatically taken care of.
Take Up a Hobby: If you are not a sports person, consider taking up a hobby, be it cooking, gardening, or learning an instrument.
Consider an Energetic Pet: An energetic pet will responsibly make your day active. In addition, some studies show improvement in heart and lung function after becoming a pet owner.
Activity throughout the day will have a positive effect on your heart health. Additionally, you can make it better by being intentional, which is cardiovascular training.
Cardiovascular exercises are generally divided into five zones:
Zone-2 training can be achieved through activities like walking, jogging, cycling, running, and swimming. Staying in this zone for minimum 3-4 hours spread across the week will have the intended health benefits.
Higher zones generally target sport-specific physical adaptations, which is unnecessary if you want to know how to maintain heart health.
Furthermore, you can add resistance training to build natural muscle mass, which will help you burn more calories.
However, if your situation does not allow the above practices, you can choose yoga.
Yoga is proven to be exceptionally effective in boosting cardiovascular health. Choose some of the following yogic practices for long-term benefits:
The Mountain Pose (Tadasana): This pose improves your breathing patterns and helps in blood circulation. It also contributes to stress management and weight loss.
The Bridge Pose (Setu Bandhasana): The bridge pose stimulates the lungs, abdominal organs and thyroid glands. It also improves blood circulation and alleviates stress.
The Downward Dog Pose (Adho Mukha Svanasana): Apart from boosting blood circulation and relieving tension, this pose helps to prevent heart blockage.
The Cobra Pose (Bhujangasana): Although one of the best exercises for spine health, the cobra pose is immensely effective for your heart.
Bee Breath (Bhramari): This pranayama can relieve hypertension by lowering blood pressure and releasing cerebral tension. That is why practising Bhramari before going to sleep is very helpful.
Alternate Nostril Breathing (Anuloma Viloma): Apart from relieving anxiety and stress, this pranayama enhances brain and cardiovascular health.
There are many other yoga poses and breathing patterns within the realm of yogic practices that can be very beneficial for your heart, but the exercises mentioned above can be an excellent place to start.
Oral hygiene is an indicator of your overall health. It is also directly related to your heart health. Bacteria responsible for gum diseases can spread through the bloodstream and increase C-reactive protein levels. It will cause inflammation in blood vessels developing risk factors for the heart.
Here are some useful tips for maintaining dental hygiene:
Learn Proper Brushing Techniques: Move your brush in a gentle and circular way. Make it a point to clear away in-between teeth. Also, remember to give your gums a massage with your fingers.
Wash Your Tongue: Washing your tongue is equally vital for eliminating plaque. Use your brush or a tongue cleaner to do the job.
Add Flossing to Your Routine: Flossing is an excellent option for cleanliness in-between teeth. It also helps to reduce plaque and gum inflammation.
Drink Water: Drinking water is necessary to maintain oral health. Take note that just gulping down the water is not enough. Drink it slowly.
Eat Fruits and Vegetables: Proper eating is not just comfortable for your digestive system; it strengthens your teeth and gums too.
Pay Regular Visits to the Dentist: Visit your dentist at least twice a year for a cleaning and complete dental check-up. A dentist can also detect possible issues and provide solutions for prevention.
No habit alone can answer the question, 'How to keep your heart healthy?' However, in unison, all the habits mentioned above can do wonders. Not only your heart but your overall life experience can have a positive effect.
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Disclaimer #2: This information is added only for informative purposes and collected from different sources across the Internet. Digit Insurance is not promoting or recommending anything here. Please verify the information before making any decisions.
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