6 Ways To Keep Your Heart Healthy

Heart-related health conditions are among the most serious illnesses facing you in your lifetime—even a single heart attack can kill you. While this is a scary truth, it is possible to reduce your chances of future heart diseases by maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Here are some of the most popular and convenient tips to help you keep your heart healthy. They are so simple you can start many of them right away!

Get Enough Sleep

Regardless of how old you are or poor health habits, not getting enough sleep increases your risk of heart disease, heart attack, and strokes. Ideally, you should be getting between 7 and 8 hours of sleep a night. Sometimes this is not possible, but do your best stay above 6 hours.

Another important note here is to make sure you seek treatment if you suffer from sleep apnea, as this increases your risk of heart failure, arrhythmias, and other related conditions.

Quit Smoking

If you smoke, one of the best things you can do for your heart is to quit right now. Smoking, after all, is one of the leading causes of heart disease. The good news is you can dramatically reduce your risk of heart disease and heart attacks by quitting—as long as you do not start up again. In addition to improving your heart health, quitting smoking will help you breathe easier, increase athletic endurance, and reduce your risk of many other health issues, such as lung cancer.

Manage Your Weight

Being overweight, particularly around your middle, puts more strain on your heart and increases your risk of heart disease. Talk to your doctor about safe and healthy ways to lose the excess weight and manage it over the long term.

Get Active

Even if you are a healthy weight, leading a sedentary lifestyle is not helping you keep your heart healthy. If you sit at a desk all day, take time to walk around every so often. Go to the washroom furthest from your desk, take a walk during your lunch break, or park further away from the office in the morning.

Most experts will recommend getting an average of 150 minutes of moderate activity each week. The good news is you can break this down and work out for 30 minutes, five times a week. You do not even need to sign up for a gym membership—although this is a great way of exercising. You can go for a brisk walk, go swimming, or even mow your lawn with a push mower and reach your weekly exercise goals!

Watch Your Diet

Eating healthy can help you increase your heart health, not to mention your overall health! While it may seem daunting to eat healthy, what with all the tips and fad diets these days, even making a few simple changes will help take better care of your heart.

The first tip is to control your portion size, both on meals and treats. It is okay to indulge in treats, but only do so in moderation. In addition, while foods like chicken may be good for you, eating a lot is not. One serving of chicken and similar meats is often the same size and thickness of a deck of cards. When cooking from packages, watch the portion sizes in the nutritional information!

Other tips to eating a diet for a healthy heart include selecting whole grains, eating lots of fruits and vegetables, limiting salt, consuming fish, and moderating alcohol intake. Before you know it, you will be eating healthier and, better yet, you will be enjoying it!

Be Aware of Your Health

The last way for you to make sure that you keep your heart healthy is to make sure to visit your doctor and listen to what he or she has to say. You may have an ongoing illness or a history of illness in your family. Take these seriously, and if you have an ongoing issue, be prepared for the worst.

Tools like an emergency bracelet could help save your life my notifying those around you that you have a medical condition, and can even be helpful to emergency medical responders that arrive to help in the event of an emergency!

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