Doctor holding heart with bandage / Getty Images/Creatas RF
When it comes to healthy hearts, there are some factors people cant control, but many factors people can manage. You cant rid yourself of a genetic predisposition to certain risk factors, for example, but you can develop good habits to protect your heart.
Focus on these four interconnected areas:
A heart-healthy diet makes a difference on a variety of fronts, from maintaining a healthy weight to controlling blood sugar, cholesterol, and high blood pressure. Its not just food, either. People who consume more than two alcoholic drinks per night may also be putting pressure on their heart, as well as their weight.
The American Heart Association has an exhaustive website with nutritional advice, recipes, and tips for dining out. They offer five goals for eating healthy:
Eat more fruits and vegetables
Eat more whole grain foods
Use olive, canola, corn, or safflower oil as your main kitchen fat
Eat more chicken, fish, and beans than other meat
Read food labels to help you choose healthy foods
Exercise complements diet in maintaining a healthy weight, but also directly affects your hearts health. The heart is, after all, a muscle, and needs to be exercised like other muscles, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center. A strong heart can pump blood throughout the body more efficiently and with less strain.
Exercise can help control heart disease and cholesterol, according to the university.
And it can help relieve stress, which leads to
How could stress affect your heart?
The human body reacts to stress by increasing muscle tension, heart rate and blood pressure, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Constant stress over time can lead to high blood pressure, cholesterol, irregular heart rhythms, artery damage and the development and progression of coronary artery disease, or atherosclerosis.
The Cleveland Clinic offers a few tips to help beat stress:
Get enough sleep
Eat healthy and exercise
Take some time out of each day to relax
Learn relaxation exercises you can use at work
Unfortunately, too many people turn to smoking and tobacco products to control stress, the Cleveland Clinic says.
The National Institutes for Health says smoking causes about one in every five deaths in the United States, making it an extremely dangerous habit.
Smoking especially taxes the heart, causing arterial and heart disease.
For help with quitting, see smokefree.gov.