Lifestyle Habits That Help to Reduce Heart Disease Risk!
reducing-heart-disease-risk
Understanding Heart Disease – Know About Symptoms and Heart Care:
Coronary Heart Disease CHD often simply called heart disease is the main form of heart disease. It is a disorder of the blood vessels of the heart that can lead to a heart attack. A heart attack happens when an artery becomes blocked, preventing oxygen and nutrients from getting to the heart. Reducing Heart Disease risk
Heart disease is one of several cardiovascular diseases, which are diseases of the heart and blood vessel system. Other cardiovascular diseases include stroke, high blood pressure, angina (chest pain), and rheumatic heart disease.
The term “Heart Disease” is:
Often used interchangeably with the term “Coronary heart disease. CHD” The cardiovascular disease generally refers to conditions that involve narrowed or blocked blood vessels that can lead to a heart attack, chest pain (angina) or stroke. Other heart conditions, such as those that affect your heart’s muscle, valves or rhythm, also are considered forms of heart disease.
Signs And Symptoms:
Symptoms of Coronary heart disease “CHD” in your blood vessels (atherosclerotic disease). Coronary heart disease symptoms may be different for men and women. For instance, men are more likely to have chest pain; women are more likely to have other symptoms along with chest discomforts, such as shortness of breath, nausea and extreme fatigue.
Symptoms Can Include:
- Chest pain, chest tightness, chest pressure and chest discomfort (angina).
- Shortness of breath.
- Pain, numbness, weakness or coldness in your legs or arms if the blood vessels in those parts of your body are narrowed.
- Pain in the neck, jaw, throat, upper abdomen or back.
- Fluttering in your chest.
- Racing heartbeat (tachycardia).
- Slow heartbeat (bradycardia).
- Chest pain or discomfort.
- Shortness of breath.
- Lightheadedness.
- Dizziness.
- Fainting (syncope) or near fainting.
Heart Disease Causes:
Heart disease starts when certain factors damage the inner layers of the coronary arteries. These factors include:
- Smoking.
- High levels of certain fats and cholesterol in the blood.
- High blood pressure.
- and high levels of sugar in the blood due to insulin resistance or diabetes.
- Blood vessel inflammation.
- Plaque might begin to build up to where the arteries are damaged. The buildup of plaque in the coronary arteries may start in childhood.
Types of Heart Disease:
Here are numerous things you can do to help lessen your risk of developing heart disease. Most people think of coronary heart disease which is the narrowing of the arteries leading to the heart. However, there are many different types of heart disease. These include arrhythmias, congenital heart disease, blood vessel disease, heart failure, and congenital heart disease among others.
I. Arrhythmia:
The heart normally beats 60 to 100 times per minute. When there is any abnormality it is considered arrhythmia. This can occur in various forms; a rhythm change or a rate change to higher or lower than normal.
II. Coronary heart disease:
This is when the arteries harden often leading to potential heart attacks. This is due to a decrease in the oxygen that goes to the heart.
III. Heart Failure:
This actually is referring to the heart not pumping as effectively as it should. This affects over 5 million Americans, particularly people over the age of 65. It could result in water retention, swelling and shortness of breath.
IV. Congenital Heart Disease:
This is a disorder that someone is born with. Sometimes the symptoms appear immediately but occasionally they may not appear until the person becomes an adult. Often this is hereditary or the result of some type of viral infection the fetus may have been exposed too. Congenital heart disease can affect the heart structure or blood vessels.
How do genetics and family history affect the risk of heart disease?
When members of a family pass traits from one generation to another through genes, that process is called heredity.
Genetic factors likely play some role in high blood pressure, heart disease, and other related conditions. However, it is also likely that people with a family history of heart disease share common environments and other factors that may increase their risk.
The risk for heart disease can increase even more when heredity combines with unhealthy lifestyle choices, such as smoking cigarettes and eating an unhealthy diet.
Prevention:
By living a healthy lifestyle, you can help keep your blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels normal and lower your risk for heart disease and heart attack.
A. Choose Healthy Habits:
- You can choose healthy habits to help prevent heart disease.
- Choose healthy foods and drinks.
- Keep a healthy weight.
- Get regular physical activity.
- Don’t smoke.
B. Take Charge of Your Medical Conditions:
If you have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, or diabetes, you can take steps to lower your risk for heart disease.
Here is a list of Tips For Healthy Lifestyle Habits That Help to Reduce Heart Disease Risk:
There are four keys lifestyle habits that you simply must do to protect your heart and reduce the risk of heart disease.
1. Dietary Considerations:
It is important for everyone to follow a heart-healthy diet. Doing so will help lessen your risk of developing heart disease in the future. If you have heart disease it is even more important to eat a healthy well-balanced diet. This will reduce bad cholesterol also known as LDL, and lower blood pressure and blood sugar levels.
- A. Eat Good Fats Only:
Good fats are ones that are high in Omega 3 fatty acids. These can be found in fish such as salmon and tuna. It is also found in vegetable oils such as olive and canola oil. You should limit saturated fats and trans fats as these are unhealthier for the heart.
- B. Increase dietary fiber:
This also helps to lower LDL levels. Fiber can be found in vegetables, whole grains, beans, and fruit.
- C. Lean Protein:
Incorporate lean proteins in your diet. These can be found in chicken, turkey, seafood. Occasional lean cuts of beef are okay but beef does have higher levels of saturated fat so moderation is in order.
- D. Complex Carbs:
These carbs are good for you and include whole-grain bread and brown rice. Avoid simple carbohydrates because they contain sugar. Examples include soda, cookies, ice cream, etc.
- E. Regular meals:
Avoid skipping meals or any type of crash diets. You need to always eat a healthy well-balanced diet and have three complete meals daily. Or five to six mini meals is another option. This will help keep blood sugar levels stabilized as well. Limit your sodium or salt intake.
2. Maintain a Healthy Weight:
Maintaining a healthy weight is critical because of excess weight, especially around our tummy area, is extremely detrimental to our heart. The more weight that is focused on our bellies, the harder it is on our organs to do the job they were made to do.
It is almost,
like the organs are choked by the excess fat in the tummy area. There are many things we can do to maintain a healthy weight like:
- Watch the number of carbohydrates, especially simple carbohydrates;
- Eats lots of whole grains and fresh fruits and veggies, and watch how much-refined sugar we are it.
- Not only refined sugar but also hydrogenated oils, trans fats, and high fructose corn syrup.
- All of these add up to increase your body fat and decrease your overall health.
Too much excess weight can lead to a number of problems, one of which is diabetes. If you have problems with your weight, try to set 1 good habit a week. Reducing Heart disease
For example,
- Cut back on sugars or eat a balanced breakfast.
- Take it slowly so you’ll stick with it.
3. Control Stress:
Stress has many negative effects on our lives such as increase weight, increase fatigue, poor sleep habits, high blood pressure, moodiness and more. Obviously, we can’t eliminate stress; however, we can control so that our heart risk is reduced. Reducing Heart disease
It is Proven,
That when we are happy, our body naturally puts out more endorphins and in turn, is ‘happier’ (chemically speaking also). It may take some effort if you have been taught to think negatively, but it is worth it if you want to have a healthier heart. Reducing Heart disease
- Learn to handle the stress instead of trying to keep it in or pretend it’ll go away.
- There are many excellent counselors, even self-hypnotist, yoga, meditation, and positive thinking books/CDs (like those of Norman Vincent Peale) that can help you.
- But just like anything- walking, sports, weight loss, etc, it may take time.
Be patient with yourself but always feed your body healthy thoughts. It needs positive encouragement in small doses over long periods of time: just like a good supplement program or weight loss program (slow and steady). Reducing Heart disease
4. Balanced Daily Vitamin Supplements:
Make sure we use a balanced daily vitamin supplement – DHA and Vitamin D are essential to heart health. DHA is crucial for a healthy heart. You can either eat 3-4 servings of healthy fish like mackerel or salmon or use a quality fish oil supplement. Many people are starting to use supplements just because of the concern of mercury and other contaminants in our waterways.
Either Way,
- just make sure it is a pure, natural form of DHA. Vitamin D is somewhat a catch 22 because we don’t want skin cancer so we use sunblock, yet the sunblock also blocks out the necessary Vitamin D.
- This is so much a dilemma that the RDA recently increased the Vitamin D requirement for children.
- The end result is to use a supplement, natural is recommended because Vitamin D can be difficult to absorb otherwise or we can just wear sunblock on the parts of our skin that we are concerned with skin cancer and aging.
- Either way, to reduce the risk of heart disease, we need Vitamin D. Reducing Heart disease
5. Exercise:
A. We do need exercise. No matter how you look at the scope of heart health, actually any health plan, exercise must be a part of it. Everything that we do counts so walks a little farther, lift a little more (using your legs, of course), play a little more, etc.
- Weight-bearing is very important also because it helps build strong bones and speeds up your metabolism.
- Cardiovascular is necessary because even our heart muscle can use a work out every now and then. Ideally, we should do 30-40 meals daily.
- We are living in a culture of convenience and these conveniences actually are among the biggest culprits to our heart health they promote obesity and reduce exercise.
However, you have the choice to make dinner or order out; to walk from the far parking lot or hover for a front spot; to flip stations or get up and play ball with your kids. Reducing Heart disease
B. You should be doing a combination of cardiovascular and aerobic type exercise:
- Aerobic exercise is the most beneficial for your heart. This exercise lowers blood pressure as well as heart rate.
- Cardiovascular exercise is also good as it works the large muscle groups of your body.
- It increases oxygen levels and helps to strengthen your heart and lungs.
- Some good aerobic exercise choices would be walking, bike riding or any type of aerobic dance activity, among others.
- You should aim to exercise 3 times weekly for 30 minutes at a time.
- You can break up the 30-minute program into three-ten minute exercise spurts at different times of the day.
To avoid any problems:
- Always do a warm-up and cool down when exercising to ease your body into physical movement.
- Does not exercise immediately after eating; always wait at least one hour.
- It is important to find an exercise program that you are comfortable with and that you can stick with.
- Consistency is the key. Finding someone to exercise with can also help you to stay committed as it provides additional encouragement and support.
Precautions:
If you have heart disease you should always take precautions when exercising. If you feel any of the following symptoms you need to immediately stop exercising. These include; chest or arm pain, trouble breathing, heart palpitations or extreme fatigue.
Elevate your feet in a resting position and contact your doctor. Your doctor will know best if this is a sign that you need a change in medication or changes in your diet. As with any changes in diet or lifestyle always consult with your medical doctor first especially if you have any disease or are taking prescription medications.
6. Natural Fat Is Good For The Heart:
It was a previously popular belief that any fats are bad for the human body and in particular the heart. However new research has since disproven this fact and the current acknowledgment is that certain types of fats are not only good for the human body but are also very much an essential ingredient that contributes to the overall good health conditions.
The Good Fats:
Understanding that not all fats are bad is a step in the right direction as it will help the individual to discern the negatives and positives of the different foods consumed. It is a scientifically acknowledged fact that not all fats are alike.
Some are good for health while others can contribute to negative body conditions such as raised blood cholesterol, cardiovascular ill health, and unnecessary weight gain.
Maintain,
a healthy body weight is something that all healthy people are conscious of doing on a regular basis. With the ideal weight in place, the various body systems do not have to be overworked and stressed to create the ideal functioning systems.
Obesity is a dominant contributor to abdominal adiposity which is an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Exercising regularly with an even and not overly stressful regiment would also allow the body to function at its optimum and not be stressed at any time.
The Bottom Line:
These simple sex steps have great importance in the success of your life, as they help you win the battle against heart diseases and you can do the rest by yourself.
There are many resources that are available if you want more information on the treatment of heart disease. The most significant thing of all is to keep a healthy lifestyle, a healthy and nutritious diet, and plenty of exercises. By keeping a healthy lifestyle you will not only be guarding yourself against heart disease but as well against all illnesses and health conditions in general.
If you find this article useful, don’t forget to share it with your friends and family, as you might help someone in need. Thanks.
Disclaimer: “Nothing in this article makes any claim to offer cures or treatment of any disease or illness. If you are sick please consult with your doctor.”
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