Do you pay enough attention to your heart health? If you’re like most people, you tend to overlook that small muscle that maintains all the ins and outs of the body. Your heart has the tendency to take on a variety of adverse, outside elements, yet it perseveres. Nevertheless, it’s important to make sure that you are doing everything your heart needs you to do to remain in peak performance for numerous years to come.
You can stay heart-healthy with these tips:
Don’t stress about it: Stress is a sneaky culprit that gives your heart at a high chance of developing the perfect recipe for unwanted outcomes, such as a heart attack or stroke. If you monitor the things that will likely cause you stress, you can save yourself from the destruction they will cause afterwards.
As you’ve probably heard many times before, don’t worry about the things you can’t control. Often times, it’s more beneficial for you to let go, and let those unavoidable circumstances play out. You can always form your rebuttal or plan of action later.
Make sure that you have an even balance between your home life and professional life. You don’t want either of them to be in control all of the time. Having that level balance will allow you to maximize your time in each space, while diminishing your stress and unnecessary worry.
Be healthy. You’re all smart human beings. You know how to live healthy lifestyles. If you don’t, I have plenty of blog posts dedicated to just that. Plain and simple: if you are overweight, you have a higher risk for heart disease. Especially if you feel like you don’t have much control over your multiple areas of your life, at least this is one you can tackle right away.
Do an online search to figure out your ideal weight range, based on your gender, age and height. Be reasonable, take your body type into consideration and make a plan to put or keep yourself within those boundaries.
You can start by eating nutritiously (think whole foods, non-processed snacks, lots of water…I’ll dive into this below.). Next, get your body moving; even a short walk a couple times a week is enough to get you started! (Again, this is covered in detail below.) Overall, make quality life choices that lend themselves toward you being healthy.
Feed your body right. I can’ t stress enough that the things you put into your body basically determine your fate. If you feed your body with fast food and processed snacks with a bazillion ingredients, what do you think will happen? Your body will react with confusion and frantically deposit those calories in storage and send some to waste because it doesn’t know what else to do.
That’s my super scientific way of saying that junk food is not good for you. Further, adding extra weight, or fat storage, to your body puts unwanted stress on your heart.
In addition, you need to avoid foods with high amounts of sodium and sugar. Instead, give your body fruits, veggies and whole grains. Instead of a confused state, your body will know right where those calories, vitamins and minerals need to go. Sure, there will still be fat storage and waste, but so much less than with junk food!
Get your workout on. Time and time again, you will hear this simple trick to keep your body healthy: workout. There’s no need to train like an Olympian, unless, of course, that is your goal. Just devote thirty minutes a day, roughly 5 days a week, to some sort of physical exercise.
You have to condition your heart to keep doing what it’s doing. Just like your biceps, your heat is a muscle and needs to be exercised. You can walk, run, jog, play a sport, do yoga…just get your heart rate above normal a couple of times during said workout. That is the key here.
Getting regular exercise can lower your bad cholesterol and lesson the chance that your will have any cholesterol issues that will gravely impact your heart. You will always lower your blood pressure with a regular exercise routine. When you exercise, your body lets go of positive hormones, or endorphins, and this can really help with your mental stability and mood, which is important since it tends to lower your stress levels when you are happy.
If you’ve made it through this article and had a few “a-ha” moments, you might need to pay more attention to your heart health. So many people live their lives without giving heart health a second look. It is so important to pay attention to your heart if you want to live a long, healthy life. Your heart is what keeps your body going…so treat it as royalty and you will have the potential to perform at top quality for years to come.
