Around the globe, the leading cause of death amongst people across demographics is heart disease.
This kind of medical issue impacts millions and millions of people each and every year. If you’re focused on your own health and wellbeing, it’s essential that you take cardiovascular disease prevention very seriously.
If you’re looking to keep your heart and arteries healthy, there are a number of preventive steps you can take. The more you secure yourself and your health against these threats, the longer and healthier you are likely to live.
What can you do to help keep a healthy heart and healthy living? Read on, and we’ll walk you through a few basics to get familiar with.
Exercise is the Best Preventive Action
If you’re worried about the health of your heart, there’s really only one preventive task to take on that will make or break you. That method? Exercise.
For years, scientists have observed a strong relationship between physical activity in people and their risk of developing peripheral artery disease. The more you move your body and pump blood, the healthier your heart will be over time.
The facts just can’t be argued with.
Why exactly is exercise so helpful when it comes to maintaining a healthy heart? It turns out there are numerous reasons why.
For one, keeping active keeps the cardiorespiratory system running efficiently, strengthening it and preventing problems from arising. This kind of activity also gets rid of fat that circulates in the blood, reduces overall blood pressure, and increases your heart rate.
Insulin sensitivity is even increased when you frequently exercise, helping to lower inflammation in the body and better regulate blood sugar levels.
Even if you can only exercise for a few minutes on a few days, it can provide a positive outcome. Ideally, you should try to exercise at least three days a week, for somewhere between half an hour and an hour.
If you can exercise more than this, they’ll be more benefits to enjoy, but this amount should at least be enough to keep you generally healthy.
Even getting in a brisk walk a few times during the week can be enough to better your overall heart health.
Watch What You Eat
You are what you eat, as the old saying goes. This saying is around for a reason, as our diets play a huge role in our overall health. Eating foods and maintaining a diet that is going to be good for our hearts is an important part of healthy living.
However, it can be hard to determine exactly what kind of foods you should be focusing on.
When it comes to heart health, there are a few items you should be focusing on. The best thing you can do is to eat plenty of fruits, vegetables, and general plant life. That can include nuts, seeds, beans, avocados, and whole grains.
When you do eat fruit, you should try and focus on fruits that have no added sugars, preservatives, or outside tampering (easier said than done, these days!).
In addition, eating seafood can be a great way to get protein without having to deal with less heart-healthy elements. Fish like salmon, mackerel, and tuna can provide what your body needs without negative side effects to be concerned about.
Last but not least, anything that contains healthy fats, like the aforementioned avocados, can be good for your heart. Using olive oil can be quite health-friendly as well and makes a good substitute for butter.
Keeping away from red meat, sugars, carbs, and salts will help to keep your heart in good shape. All of these can raise your blood pressure, clog your arteries, and increase your overall risk of heart disease.
This can keep you healthy, ensuring you won’t have to spend time looking into pad treatment options in the near future.
Reduce Stress
Another major contributor to poor heart and artery health? Stress and anxiety. The more stress you put your body through, the more long-term damage you can be doing to your internal systems.
Frequent and consistent stress can depress your immune system, raise your blood pressure, and make you especially vulnerable to disease.
If you have been stressed out lately, it’s worth taking a step back and considering what changes you can make to your life or environment to combat this stress.
Sometimes, putting some time aside during the day to do nothing but relax can do a lot of good. Getting into either yoga or meditation has proven to be restorative for a great many people.
You may even want to consider getting a pet, as many people have found that the companionship of an animal is an amazing way to help bring stress levels down in a consistent manner.
Ensuring you get a proper night’s sleep each night can also help a good deal. Getting between seven and nine hours each night will make a big difference.
Lucky for you, eating a proper diet and getting a good amount of exercise in both can help to contribute to a less anxiety-ridden existence as well.
Cardiovascular Disease Prevention
If you’re looking to ensure you maintain a healthy heart for years to come, you’ll want to take the above cardiovascular disease prevention tips seriously. Implementing these changes into your life can keep your mind and body healthy and ensure your arteries run as they should.
Need more health tips, tricks, and advice? Keep scrolling our blog for more.
