How to Keep Your Heart Healthy: 10 Tips for Preventing Heart Disease
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Have you noticed that every time you refer to something that is dear or important to you, you inadvertently use the term ‘heart’? Think of the number of times you may have used phrases such as ‘The kitchen is the heart of my home’ or ‘My heart is set on this watch.’
Such is the importance of this fist-sized muscle that plays the role of being the body’s central blood pumping station. It performs the enormous and vital function of pumping oxygen and nutrient-rich blood to every part of your body.
A healthy heart is consequential to healthy living, but how to keep the heart healthy is a question that often daunts everyone. There is a lot you can do to promote heart health. This article discusses ten simple but effective ways in which you can care for your heart and keep it healthy.
How Can I Make My Heart Stronger?
Reduced levels of stress, regular exercise, a healthy diet, and adequate rest are the building blocks of a strong and healthy heart. Creating a good plan around these and following them diligently can help you make your heart stronger.
Possible Consequences of Neglecting Your Heart
Heart Disease
Heart attacks and strokes are the most widely known form of cardiovascular problems. But cardiovascular diseases encompass a larger set of conditions such as arrhythmia, coronary artery diseases, etc. While some conditions are either genetic or congenital and can only be managed, the vast majority run a heart disease risk by neglecting our health and making poor lifestyle choices.
High Blood Pressure
Blood pressure is the force exerted by blood on the artery walls as it passes along them. Neglecting your heart can result in elevated blood pressure. High blood pressure damages the blood vessels and, over time, leads to cardiovascular diseases and other health issues.
Cholesterol
The build-up of fat in the arteries is called cholesterol. Fat accumulation can cause the arteries to narrow down, causing a reduced flow of blood through them. In some cases, the accumulated fat can completely block the arteries and can cause a heart attack and stroke, depending on the location of the blockage.
Compromised Quality of Life
Performing basic functions like walking, talking, bending, and lifting need the heart to be in top condition. Below-average heart health can cause bodily strain when performing these basic activities. A neglected heart may manifest itself in symptoms like fatigue, dizziness, and shortness of breath, ultimately leading to a compromised quality of life.
What Are 10 Ways to Keep Your Heart Healthy?
1. Exercise Regularly
There is no alternative to exercise when it comes to being able to live a healthy and disease-free life. A minimum of 30 minutes of exercise should be incorporated into your regular schedule four to five times a week.
Exercise increases physical fitness and promotes heart health by triggering a host of changes in the body. Feeling the muscles work or the heart rate going up are easily observable physical changes. Increased metabolism, improved blood flow, and release of feel-good neurotransmitters are some physiological changes in the body that cannot be observed. Together, the physical and physiological factors work towards lowering risk factors like blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes, all of which contribute to heart health.
While it is great to have an exercise schedule built into your daily life, make sure that you do not overdo it. Over-exercising can do more bad than good and have unfavorable results on the heart.
2. Eat a Well-Balanced Diet
Diet plays the most important role in maintaining good heart health. Greasy, high-calorie foods clog the arteries and cause several heart problems. A step in the right direction would be to completely eliminate fizzy drinks, junk, processed, and refined foods. This step alone can propel you towards a healthy life.
Include a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables in your diet as well. Lentils, seeds, nuts, and certain kinds of seafood rich in Omega-3 fatty acids should regularly be consumed. Opt for whole and low-fat foods, limit the intake of sugar and salt, and choose healthy fats like olive oil. Do not fall prey to fad diets, and stay close to homemade and traditional foods!
If you would like a list of foods that promote heart health and overall wellness, check out our Healthy Transformation Grocery List (affiliate link).
3. Reduce Stress
Be it meeting aggressive deadlines, multitasking, or simply staying on top of things, stress has become part of our lives today. While a certain amount of stress is necessary to keep us challenged, dealing with it for prolonged periods can harm the heart.
The body releases a hormone called cortisol when it is continuously under stress. This hormone can potentially increase cholesterol, hypertension, and blood sugar and negatively impact the heart. Therefore, it is important to destress regularly. Be it resetting goals and expectations, practicing meditation and breathing techniques, sharing responsibilities, going on a holiday, or spending some time for self-care, destressing is a must for keeping your heart healthy.
4. Sleep Well
Sleep is an important but highly underrated parameter when it comes to health and well-being. Insufficient sleep brings in problems like anxiety, elevated blood pressure, and cholesterol, to name a few. It pushes you to make poor food choices which in turn can lead to weight gain and obesity. All of these factors play a role in stressing the heart.
Seven to eight hours of good-quality sleep is a must. Fix a bedtime and adhere to it. Create a calming routine around this time that signals your body to wind down. Do not engage in activities that keep your mind alert and active around bedtime. Make sure to stay away from activities that keep you away from following the body’s circadian rhythm.
5. Make Lifestyle Changes
Lifestyle is much more than living luxuriously. Lifestyle literally means practicing or incorporating changes in the smallest of activities to produce positive and sustainable results. A good lifestyle is paramount to heart health.
Starting your day with a glass of warm water, as opposed to coffee or tea, staying active throughout the day outside, taking a break from gadgets and technology, engaging in physical activity, consuming an early dinner, and practicing meditation and mindfulness are all examples of a healthy lifestyle. Being consistent with incorporating them into your life can provide tremendous benefits to your body and mind, which in turn gives you a healthy heart.
6. Consume Alcohol in Moderation
Some studies support the consumption of alcohol in moderate quantities for good heart health, while others completely dismiss them. However, with alcohol, moderation is key. Regular consumption of excessive amounts of alcohol can cause high blood pressure, which, as we have seen in this article, is a trigger for many heart-related ailments.
Alcohol causes one to make poor food choices leading to an unwanted pileup of calories and weight gain, another reason for the heart to work twice as hard. High amounts of alcohol also cause a condition called cardiomyopathy, reducing the heart’s ability to pump blood. It is ideal to stay away from alcohol. But if you must consume it, make it an occasional habit and limit the consumption.
7. Quit Smoking
Smoking is the number one enemy of the heart. It causes heart attacks, strokes, and many other cardiovascular diseases. Tobacco contains harmful substances like nicotine, tar, and acetone that harm the body extensively. Nicotine constricts blood vessels and causes improper blood flow and even blood clots.
Smoking increases blood pressure and damages the blood vessels, which impacts the heart directly. While the ill effects of active smoking are well known, passive smoking is equally dangerous and poses dangers to the heart.
8. Maintain a Healthy Weight
Excess weight can lead to increased belly fat, cholesterol, blood pressure, and type 2 diabetes. An obese body makes the heart work harder to pump blood and weakens it over time. Maintaining a healthy weight, therefore, is consequential to heart health.
While exercise and diet are non-negotiable, it is important to make a conscious effort to stay hydrated throughout the day. Water not only helps flush out toxins but also creates a sense of fullness and prevents you from mindless snacking. Practice mindfulness and portion control to avoid overeating. Start cooking your meals as opposed to ordering out. That way, you control what goes into your body.
These are small but significant steps that can help you reach and maintain a healthy body weight.
9. Address Underlying Health Conditions
Diabetes, cholesterol, high blood pressure, and obesity are all conditions that increase heart disease risk at some point in time. An increasing number of the population today is affected by these lifestyle diseases. A family history of such diseases can definitely put you at a greater risk of heart disease. But seeking medical intervention and being regular with the prescribed medication can control the situation and prevent it from getting worse. Similarly, tweaking your lifestyle to incorporate healthy habits can help manage or reverse the condition. Leaving underlying health conditions unattended increases your risk of heart damage.
10. Get Regular Check-ups
Not all heart issues come with warnings and alerts. In fact, they often go undetected until it flares up into a life-threatening situation. In cases where they do display mild symptoms like tiredness and fatigue, they are not taken seriously and are often brushed away under the carpet.
Regular check-ups are the one way to detect such issues early and get started on the right course of treatment. Not just that, regular check-ups provide your healthcare provider with the necessary history and health patterns, which help them provide you with a routine that befits your condition.
What are the Signs of an Unhealthy Heart?
While classic symptoms like chest pain, pain in the jaw, or shooting pain down the arm directly point you in the direction of a heart attack, an unhealthy heart exhibits several other subtle symptoms that are often overlooked.
Excessive snoring, exhaustion, and fatigue are some such symptoms that should not be ignored. Swollen hands and feet are often self-diagnosed as water retention, while a persistent cough is deemed as flu.
If these are issues that don’t solve themselves within a short period of time, they could be indications of an unhealthy heart. Some other symptoms include shortness of breath while performing even the least strenuous activity, irregular heartbeats, and unexplained dizziness.
Final Thoughts
The cardiovascular system is a complex system governing the working of all other systems in the body. The other bodily systems depend on the heart to set a pace for their activities. Failure of the cardiovascular system can pose life-threatening consequences like heart attacks and cardiac arrest.
Give your heart the care it deserves by following the ten tips we have discussed above. Pay close attention to the signals that your heart sends out, and never let these symptoms fester. Act immediately and mitigate the heartbreak. After all, a healthy heart is indeed a happy one!
Frequently Asked Questions
What fruit is best for the heart?
Fruits that are high in antioxidant value and citrus fruits are considered best for the heart.
What drink is best for the heart?
Water is the undisputed choice when it comes to heart health. Green tea in moderation is a close second due to its antioxidant properties that help in reducing inflammation.
How do you know if your heart is OK?
A heart rate of 60 to 100 beats per minute, a blood pressure reading of around 120/80 mmHg, and the ability to run your daily life without feeling abnormal levels of stress, shortness of breath, dizziness, or fatigue are all general indicators of a normal heart.
Yet, one may fail to recognize some underlying signs and symptoms, which make it necessary to talk to a doctor and undergo an annual check-up to make sure that your heart is okay.
