Looking after your heart is vital to living a longer and healthier life. Not only will improving your heart condition decrease the chances of obtaining health conditions such as diabetes or heart disease, but you’ll feel much more active and able day-to-day. The ways in which you can improve your heart health don’t necessarily require time; a healthy lifestyle can be adopted by anyone. Here are our top tips for keeping your heart strong;
Regardless of weight, age, exercise and smoking habits, lack of sleep is linked to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and coronary heart disease. Not only this, but a study has also found that poor sleeping patterns increase the likelihood of fatal heart attacks and strokes.
‘Sleep is important for biological recovery and takes around a third of our lifetime’ – Qiao He.
Previous scientific research and studies suggest that drinking tea daily can cut the risk of heart disease. Tea contains health boosting flavonoids that can reduce the possibility of heart disease by 11% - flavonoids are powerful antioxidants with immune system and anti-inflammatory benefits. Not only do these flavonoid plant chemicals play a big part in keeping our hearts healthy; tea contains less caffeine than coffee. It’s proven that overconsumption of caffeine can promote the development of cardiovascular disease, strokes and heart attacks.
Who knew that keeping your pearly whites and gums intact could help look after your heart, too? There’s a link between heart implications and gum disease; the build-up of plaque in the walls of the arteries can lead to heart attacks - it’s for this reason that it’s important to keep your teeth and gum hygiene at a reasonable level.
Top tip: try using an interdental brush to keep your mouth and gums healthy.
It’s one we hear much too often, but it’s the most important when it comes to our health. Exercise is imperative for physical and mental health; especially when it comes to heart health and preventing coronary heart disease/stroke. Increased physical activity will enable your heart and blood circulatory system to become more efficient; it’ll keep your blood pressure at a healthy level and will lower your cholesterol level.
It’s said that eating just two portions of fish a week could reduce the likelihood of heart implications. Why? Fish contains omega-3 fatty acids, which are a great type of unsaturated fatty acid that reduce inflammation throughout our bodies. It’s vital that body inflammation is kept to a minimum for preventing damage to blood vessels, which, in some cases, can lead to strokes and heart disease.
Top tip: eat less red meat (high in saturated fat) and look at incorporating more fish into your diet.
Dependent on individual’s coping mechanisms, stress can contribute to bad heart health. Not only is stress on its own enough to have an adverse effect on our hearts, but different people deal with stress in risky ways – such as smoking, drinking or overeating, which are all factors that can have a substantial impact on heart health. De-stress to help your heart – taking up regular exercise, mediation or merely staying positive are all ways in which you can look after your heart when stress is involved.
Taking a moment to step back and take a deep breath, when hampered with stress, is sometimes all it takes to relax our bodies again.
Health insurance can be a great way to put your mind at rest when it comes to health worries. We can take steps to improving our general health, including heart health, but this doesn’t prevent health implications occurring that are simply out of our control.
Get in touch with our friendly team to see how we can help you find the right health insurance policy, for the best price – guaranteed!
