11 Great Ways to Keep Your Heart Healthy

It is impossible to completely eliminate the risk of heart problems because some factors that affect your chances of getting heart problems aren’t manageable. But following recommendations can help you move in the direction of a good heart and overall health.

Following these recommendations can help you preserve your heart health and delay their onset.

1. Eat more vegetables and fruits

Diet plays a major role in your heart health. Eating healthy foods, particularly vegetables, can be good for your heart health and overall well being. People who eat primarily vegetables are less prone to cardiac events and experience less serious complications.

Fruits and vegetables can benefit your heart health in several ways. They provide a healthy amount of fiber, antioxidants, and vitamins. Although fruits and vegetables have high nutritional value, they are low in calories and don’t contain carbs. Besides, vegetables contain probiotics that help strengthen your immune system and improve your body’s ability to fight inflammation.

2. Control your stress levels

Stress can be as harmful to your heart health as smoking and heavy drinking. Chronic stress puts your body in constant fight-or-flight mode. In this state, your body releases cortisol that increases your heart rate and blood pressure. This can lead to unhealthy changes in your heart. Besides, constant exposure to cortisol can trigger overall body inflammation, another major risk factor for heart problems.

Practicing relaxing techniques like meditation, deep breathing and yoga can help you relieve stress. Controlling your body’s response to stress can help decrease the risk of heart disease significantly.

3. Avoid animal fat

Diet high in animal fat can raise your risk of heart disease. Consuming animal fats can increase your levels of cholesterol, which is a major contributing factor to heart problems. Animal fats often have high-calorie content and may increase your risk of obesity. Proteins in animal foods, particularly red meat, can trigger or aggravate existing inflammatory processes in the body. Chronic inflammation can damage your heart and vessels that supply blood to all your organs.

Instead of animal fats try to include in your diet more plant-based fats. You may also replace animal fast with polyunsaturated fats from fish like wild salmon and sardines. These types of fish contain an omega-3 fatty acid that reduces inflammation and promotes better heart health. Of course, no one tells you to exclude meat from your diet completely. But by reducing its intake you can promote your heart health.

4. Control your blood pressure

High blood pressure is a major precursor to heart disease. Elevated pressure can damage your arteries and make them less elastic. This decreases the flow of blood, oxygen, and nutrients to all body organs including your heart. Besides, high blood pressure makes your blood vessels more prone to clogging. A plaque build-up can restrict the blood flow to your heart or brain causing life-threatening health issues like a heart attack or stroke.

5. Reduce the intake of added sugars

Most people know about the added sugar’s ability to add excessive weight. But did you know that added sugars can be just as bad for your heart health as for weight? Even if you aren’t overweight, a diet rich in added sugars can increase your risk of death from a cardiac event. Despite the danger of added sugars, most Americans consume three times more sugar than recommended 6 tbsp daily.

If you are concerned about your heart health, try to minimize the intake of added sugar. Obtain sugar from natural sources like fruits. Your heart will appreciate you for this.

6. Lose excessive weight

Obesity raises the risk of high blood pressure, heart attack, and stroke. Even some excessive weight can put you at risk of diabetes, which is associated with heart disease. When you are obese, your heart has to work harder to provide all body organs with nutrients and oxygen. By overstraining your heart, you become more vulnerable to serious heart problems.

Belly fat can be even more harmful to your heart. The more fat you have in the abdominal area, the more you are prone to heart accidents.

7. Stop smoking

Smoking is extremely harmful to all your body organs, including your heart. Even occasionally smoking a cigarette can trigger heart changes that increase the risk of a heart attack. The chemicals from cigarettes put you at risk of atherosclerosis, blood clots, poor blood flow, and stroke.

Even if you smoke for a long time, it’s never too late to quit. You need to know that your risk of cardiac event decreases by 50 percent during the first year after quitting. After 10 years of not using cigarettes, your body and heart can recover completely from the cigarette's damage.

8. Get a regular cardiac screening

Let’s face it, no one ever had fun visiting the cardiologist. It is always a little scary to wonder how the doctor tells you that something is wrong with your heart. But not knowing about the existing heart condition is even scarier. Getting a regular heart screening is the best way to stay on top of your heart health. If you have a predisposition to heart disease, the doctor can recommend preventative measures and lifestyle changes to preserve your heart health.

9. Exercise regularly

There is no doubt that regular physical activity is good for overall and heart health. Exercises can help you decrease your risk of heart accidents even if you have a genetic predisposition. To get more benefits for your heart health, you need to combine both aerobic workouts and strength training. Aerobic exercises improve circulation and improve heart performance. Strength training reduces pressure on your arteries, decreasing the risk of heart problems.

Besides, regular exercises improve the ability of your muscles to draw oxygen and nutrients directly from the circulating blood. This reduces the load on your heart muscle and promotes heart health.

10. Know your family history of heart diseases

Genetic factors play a role in your risk of developing heart problems like high blood pressure, heart disease, and other similar conditions. If one of your family members has heart disease, your chances of getting cardiac problems increase significantly. For this reason, it is important to know your family history of heart conditions and inform your doctor about it. The doctor can help you manage the risk and preserve heart health.

11. Drink in moderation

Heavy drinking can make you more prone to serious heart problems. It can weaken your heart muscle, cause irregular heartbeats, and increase blood pressure. These issues can increase your risk of death from stroke or heart failure.

But how much alcohol is too much? Moderate drinking is defined as one alcoholic beverage for women and two for men. Some researchers suggest that moderate alcohol intake can be even beneficial for the heart. However, current studies aren’t enough to be sure that moderate consumption of alcohol can improve your heart health.