Your heart is the machine that keeps you going. Alongside your brain, it’s considered one of the most important organs in your body, and everybody knows the dangers of not treating it well. However, how to treat it well is a more highly contested issue. Different people say different things, so here’s a list of the ways you can keep your heart healthy, which every expert agrees upon.
Manage your Diet
Weight gain can cause terrible heart problems, simply because if you put on weight your body will have to work that much harder. It can cause high blood pressure amongst many other vascular problems that can eventually lead to heart disease.
A poor diet doesn’t only impact your physical wellbeing, though. It can cause social issues such as withdrawal due to embarrassment or because you are too tired (stress and fatigue also being problems with weight gain).
Putting extra stress on your heart can increase your chance of heart disease because your heart may not be getting all the blood it needs. This can cause a higher chance of a heart attack and heart failure.
Try to stay away from trans fats which can really damage your heart. Fats like those in the Mediterranean diet (e.g. oleic oil from olives and avocados) can be a much better way for you to get those necessary fat components into your diet.
You should also consider supplementation as a form of diet management – foods like Hoodia Gordonii are an all-natural way to control your appetite, according to healthmonthly.co.uk. You should learn about measures like BMI to decide how much weight you need to lose and measure your progress along the way.
Don’t Smoke
Smoking is universally terrible for your health. It increases the likelihood of you developing heart disease many years earlier than you otherwise could. It can also obviously increase the risk of cancer, lung disease and abnormal ageing. By thickening and poisoning your blood while simultaneously stimulating your heart, smoking puts such unnecessary pressure on your heart, something that you should do everything you can to stop. Quitting smoking is the single best thing you can do for your heart.
Watch Your Cholesterol
Cholesterol levels can quite effectively determine your risk of poor cardiac activity. However there is a difference between good cholesterol and bad cholesterol. Good cholesterol (HDL) can carry bad cholesterol (LDL) away from your arteries and actually encourage it to be processed by your liver. Bad cholesterol, on the other hand, can block your blood vessels, increasing your risk of a stroke.
It doesn’t completely eliminate the bad cholesterol that causes fatty build-ups in your arteries (which can cause heart attack and stroke), but it certainly helps to reduce it and is therefore thought of as a protector against heart disease and stroke.
You can lower your cholesterol levels by eating healthier and reducing your intake of fatty foods and exercising more. You should also quit smoking and lessen your alcohol intake. However, remember that it can also run through families, so be sure to get checked out.
You should also always manage your blood pressure and make sure you check it regularly. High blood pressure is also known as hypertension and is quite difficult to treat properly. The consequences include heart attacks and strokes. Make sure you keep your salt level low.
Exercise
The good thing about the heart is that it is a muscle so can be strengthened with practice. If you live too much of a sedentary lifestyle, your entire cardiovascular system can be damaged.
Making sure you get as much exercise as you need is one of the most crucial things you can do for your heart, and is even part of the optimal recovery rehabilitation following a heart attack. Your body was meant to move – don’t stop it from doing so.
No health expert in the world will disagree with the importance of the above elements about your heart health. They would also likely stress that taking care of your heart is more important than any other muscle in the body, as remember that to keep you safe it can never stop beating.
