In the rat race of life, we often wear our hearts on our sleeve, forgetting it is the most crucial thing beating inside our chest. This vital engine, not just of our emotions, but of our very existence, deserves some TLC. So, ditch the emotional baggage and grab these natural heart health tips to keep your heart humming happily. We have also included heart healthy diet tips for a lifestyle that adds to your wellness and longevity quotient.
Heart Health Tips #1 -Get Moving-Rise Above Your Sedentary Lifestyle
Your heart’s a muscle, and like any diva, it craves a good workout. Leave the elevator for the stairs, bust a move to your favorite tunes, or take a nature walk with a buddy (four-legged or otherwise). Aim for at least 30 minutes of daily cardio, and your heart will serenade you with its rhythmic beat of gratitude. Research shows the tremendous benefits of physical activity on heart health. Regular physical activity is an important thing to be done for one’s health. Moreover, it helps in various ways, including:
- Achieving and maintaining a balanced body weight.
- Lowering the risks of hypertension, heart disease and helps balance blood sugar and lower the risk of Type-2 Diabetes.
- It may also improve the muscle to fat ratio.
- Helping in reducing the risk of certain cancers.
- Strengthening the bones.
- Reducing stress.
- Improving sleep
- Improving cognition or the ability to perform daily activities and prevent falls.
- Increasing healthful longevity.
Experts suggest that exercise tolerance testing is helpful before beginning an exercise program. Moreover, there are three kinds of exercises that may be a part of your daily living activities.
Aerobics
An aerobics exercise for 30 minutes daily minimally and going up to 60 minutes in an alternating pattern of moderate to vigorous-intensity exercise days is a good way to increase your body capacity.
Resistance strengthening
Full-body resistance exercises should be done 2 to 3 times a week.
Flexibility and Stretching
- Stretching exercises should be done everyday to improve your overall ability to exercise freely. Various kinds of yogasanas are helpful in stretching and improving cardiac health, including:
- The Mountain Pose (Tadasana).
- The Chair Pose (Utkatasana).
- The Tree Pose (Vrikshasana).
- The Standing Forward Bend (Uttanasana).
- The Big Toe Pose (Padangusthasana).
- The Downward Facing Dog Pose (Adho Mukho Svanasana).
- The Seated Forward Bend (Paschimottanasana).
- The Bridge Pose (Setu Bandhasana)
Always learn yogasanas one-to-one from a seasoned practitioner and do not attempt to do them yourself reading a book or watching a video. You need personal guidance to learn and master yogasanas. Practising asanas wrongly can lead to harm rather than benefit. So, ensure finding an authentic yoga teacher to learn yogic stretching and other asanas.
Heart Health Tips #2- Lose that Belly Fat: The Real Culprit of Heart Disease Risk
An increased body weight gives rise to plaque buildup in the arteries leading to a heart attack. Excess body fat is an important risk factor of heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and having a high LDL (bad forms of cholesterol). However, belly fat is considered as the most important factor in increasing the risk of heart disease. Read further to get an insight.
- Belly fat pumps out chemicals like cytokines triggering chronic inflammation throughout the body. The big problem of chronic inflammation is linked with life-crippling conditions such as heart disease.
- Fat cells in the belly also produce steroid hormones, which again increases your tendency to gain fat. This leads to a vicious cycle of more fat-storage hormones and more fat build up making it harder to lose weight.
- Belly fat above a certain point can also lead to important fat-storage hormone insulin, which again leads to metabolic issues.
Why is losing belly fat important?
Obesity, especially due to belly fat, can lead to heart failure if the heart cannot pump enough blood to meet the body’s requirements.
Numerous studies indicate that belly fat is dangerous. A pot bellied person with a normal weight has a significantly high risk of mortality due to heart conditions.
Shedding Fat and Losing Weight Safely
The right way to shed fat is healthy eating and exercise programs. Therefore, it makes sense to go for a diet program focusing on foods such as whole fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and beans. They will naturally lower the daily calorie intake and help one achieve the right level of satiety and fullness. This reduces the tendency to take on excess calories.
- Importantly, one must achieve a BMI of 18.5 and 25, which helps measure body fat based on height and weight. It is helpful for calculating the BMI.
- The waist circumference at the belly button should be less than 35 inches in women and less than 40 inches in men.
Heart Health Tips #3–Factors to Check For Improving Heart Health Naturally
Lowering Non-HDL Cholesterol
Earlier, LDL (or “bad” cholesterol) was the most important treatment target for lowering cardiovascular events. That’s why it is important to balance LDL.
However, there is a growing consensus that non-HDL cholesterol, which is LDL plus other bad particles. This leads to build-up of cholesterol-filled plaques in artery walls.
Most standard lipid panels tell you the level of your non-HDL cholesterol. There is clear evidence of coronary artery disease in people with non-HDL of more than 100. It is important for healthy individuals to keep a check on non-HDL C to prevent development of cardiovascular disease.
Smoking Cessation
Regular tobacco use leads to life-threatening conditions. It can lead to heart disease, breathing problems, lung cancer, kidney cancer and emphysema. People that smoke consistently, especially children, are at the risk of serious health problems.
Nicotine replacement in the form of gums, patches, sprays and lozenges. If you are a habitual smoker, one of the most important things you need to do is go for a smoking cessation program. With each day of your progress in quitting smoking, things will get better and better.
Check Your Resting Blood Pressure
The blood pressure should be kept under control as a higher blood pressure increases the risk of heart attack, kidney disease, stroke, congestive heart failure, impotence, reduced mental function and dementia.A significant increase in heart attack and stroke risk should not begin with readings of 140/90, these numbers are used to define high blood pressure. There could be so many serious and life-threatening risks which may begin at much lower readings like 130/80. That’s why the newly published U.S. guidelines state that high blood pressure is now defined as 130 and higher for systolic blood pressure, or 80 and higher for diastolic blood pressure (the bottom number).
Health Health Tips #4- Recommendations To Lower Blood Pressure Naturally with Heart Healthy Diet
Consume fruits and vegetables to gain a health advantage
- A vegetable- and fruit-rich eating plan helps ensure that you’re eating plenty of foods that will fill up your stomach. It will be low in calories for improving weight-loss efforts. It is necessary to lose excess weight which will prove to be an effective way to lower blood pressure. These resources also prove to be great resources of potassium, magnesium and calcium. Various studies show that foods rich in these minerals will lower the toxic effects of sodium.
Reducing the consumption of calorie-dense foods having loads of fat, sugar, and refined grains. This is also helpful in enhancing your weight-loss efforts.
Check those sodium-rich foods
Most physicians agree to the sodium guidelines by the Centers for Disease Control and American Heart Association. The ideal limit for most adults is not more than 1500 milligrams of sodium daily for most adults. It is helpful to limit salt intake, especially in disease conditions when it is needed the most. Studies show that a higher salt restriction will lead to a greater fall in blood pressure.
Limit Alcohol Consumption
Studies show that consuming more than 3 drinks daily (higher alcohol consumption) can increase the risk of hypertension.
Exercise Daily
Daily physical activity promotes a balanced weight, which is important for controlling blood pressure and stimulating production of nitric oxide within the body. This helps expand blood vessels and increases the blood flow.
Heart Health Tips: In The End
These are some of the basic heart health tips. It is important to get a diagnosis, analysis and heart care advice from your healthcare practitioner. Apart from this, regular checkups (including stress tests) from a reputed medical practitioner can give insights into your heart health and help in creating a plan for augmenting heart health. Planning a preventative routine with the right amount of physical exercise, well-balanced natural ingredients (micronutrient- Zinc, Magnesium enhancing) and monitoring factors such as non-HDL C can prove worthwhile in naturally keeping the heart healthy and fit.