Healthy Heart Tips to Live Longer

Heart diseases have gone on to become the number one cause of death in both men and women. The fact that heart conditions affect more people from developed countries suggests that it’s the modern way of living that contributes to heart disease more than anything else.

Over the past few years, there has been a lot of research to find out the major causes of heart disease and also to discover preventive measures that could be taken to avoid this fatal condition. To avoid heart disease and maintain a healthy heart, you need to take the following steps.

First, you need to make a few drastic changes in your daily diet. You must stop eating junk foods, processed foods and oily and spicy items. These unhealthy foods should be replaced by plenty of fiber rich foods and wholesome grains. If you are overweight as a result of eating unhealthy fatty foods over the years, you need to adapt a diet that aids in weight loss. Obesity significantly increases the risk of damage to the heart. This risk further increases if you live a sedentary lifestyle.

Lack of exercise is another factor that contributes to heart disease. Weight training exercises may help you to build muscles, but it’s the cardiovascular exercises that help to keep your heart healthy. To get best results, you should do both weight training exercises and cardiovascular exercises in the right proportion. Just about 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise each day can prove to be very beneficial for your heart health. If you are above the age of 50, you should consult your doctor before starting off with an exercise routine. For people who are above the age of 50, it is better to focus on cardiovascular exercises like walking, jogging, etc.

If you want to maintain a healthy heart, you should strictly stay away from smoking. If you are a regular smoker, your heart will age faster. The harmful substances like nicotine that cigarettes contain can cause atherosclerosis which is also known as the hardening of arteries. This condition leads to narrowed arteries and your heart is made to work much harder to supply adequate amount of blood to vital organs of the body. Atherosclerosis significantly increases the risk of heart attacks. In addition to causing heart problems, smoking may also lead to lung diseases and cancer.

You should keep a track of your cholesterol levels. Your LDL (bad cholesterol) should always be low and your HLD (good cholesterol) should be high. Besides these two, you should also maintain a low level of Triglycerides. Keeping these in the right levels can drastically reduce the risk of heart diseases.

High blood pressure can prove to be very dangerous and may lead to heart attacks. Hence, it is necessary to keep your blood pressure under control.

High amount of blood sugar is another factor that can cause heart ailments. High blood sugar increases the risk of heart disease by causing problems in the metabolism. If you suffer from diabetes, you should put in extra effort and take appropriate medications to maintain the right level of blood sugar. Going for a long walk on a regular basis is an effective way to bring down the levels of blood sugar.

To prevent heart ailments, it is necessary to have control over the stress levels. There are a lot of factors that can cause stress and you need to learn how to manage it. To do so, you can try breathing exercises, meditation, yoga, etc.