Habits for Better Heart Health

Research shows these habits listed below can be very destructive and play havoc with your heart.

Being overweight, poor diet, alcohol in excess, smoking and not exercising and being active. These can also affect blood pressure, cholesterol and even blood sugar levels. They can also lead to a long list of heart complications such as stroke, heart attack, heart failure etc. etc. Long-term excessive drinking increases your risk of developing problems with your heart. Check out this statistic, being a nonsmoker who is at an average healthy weight, who exercises and eats right would be 83 percent less likely to have a heart attack or heart disease. That’s very encouraging.

Don’t get discouraged, if you struggle in some of these areas, you can always make some positive changes. Start exercising. Find something you enjoy doing. Mix it up. Try to do something for at least 30 minutes a day. You can always work your way up to some serious cardiovascular exercise that will really benefit your heart. You don’t have to exercise strenuously to achieve benefits, but you can see bigger benefits by increasing the intensity, duration and frequency of your workouts. Physical activity helps you control your weight and can reduce your chances of developing other conditions that may put a strain on your heart, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes.

Excess weight can really put a strain on your heart. Change your nutritional plan. Add fruits and vegetables, lean proteins and fiber to you diet. Try to really limit processed foods, simple carbohydrates and sugar. Pay close attention to the kinds of fats in your diet. So there are good and bad cholesterols; LDL is the dangerous kind of cholesterol and HDL is the beneficial kind to your heart. You can produce more of the HDL cholesterol by exercising regularly and limiting saturated fat, and cholesterol by avoiding too many animal products such as red meats and full-fat dairy, and including healthier fats such as certain vegetable oils. It’s also important to limit trans fats (like palm oils, fried foods, and what you find in a lot of processed foods).

Smoking and heart problems go hand in hand. Smoking doesn’t just affect your lungs. Chemicals in tobacco can damage your heart and blood vessels, leading to narrowing of the arteries, which can ultimately lead to a heart attack. Physical activity helps you control your weight and can reduce your chances of developing other conditions that may put a strain on your heart, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes. Also, monitoring your blood sugar levels can reduce your chance of diabetes. Diabetes can quadruple your risk of heart disease or stroke, so keeping blood sugar levels under control is crucial to preventing medical problems involving the heart. If left untreated, diabetes can also cause many other health complications.

It’s never too late to make positive, proactive changes to avoid heart disease. Think of making yourself your own project. Just be more mindful of how your day to day behavior can affect your health. Get support and encouragement from those close to you. The American Heart Association can be a great resource and motivator for tips and suggestions to battle heart disease. Start with reasonable goals and you will achieve them and your heart will thank you.