Chapter 5 Make Your Heart Healthy and Strong with these Lifestyle Changes
There comes a time in everyone’s lives when we have to decide and commit to making healthy lifestyle changes. Often times, it’s when they realize that their body is starting to break down, in the terminal stage of a disease, or experience the pain of losing a loved one from ill health. These situations are often the turning point in their lives where they finally decide on the best course for them and their family.
It’s always better to live a healthy life, full of vitality, youth, and vibrancy than to live a sick life that constantly relies on health support. Our environment plays a significant role in our heart health. So if your living condition is not conducive to your health, such as living in a heavily polluted area with poor hygiene and health facilities, the best option is to relocate to somewhere else.
Diet: The Importance of a Healthy Diet
Our bodies and hearts form an extremely complex organic living machine, but far more advanced than anything a man can create. But like all machines, it needs the right fuel and lubrication to maintain it. Have you heard of the saying that “Your body is your vehicle for this life’s journey”? Thus, you should honor your body more than anything else. Think about it, would you put cheap vegetable oil in your new car or try and fill the tank with cheap, dirty old fuel.
Then why would you do that to your body, you can always buy a new car, but you cannot get a new body (well, maybe a new heart, but what a hassle and expense). Surely it is sensible to only use the very best fuels for your body! Of course, what I meant by fuel is your diet intake. Only choose the food that’ll benefit your health, not destroy your body.
Exercise - The best Heart Exercises
So what is the best and most effective exercise for preventing heart diseases? Studies show that high-intensity exercise coupled with slightly longer periods of active recovery is not only beneficial to your heart’s health, but also aids in weight loss, diabetes, and improving your overall fitness level.
It can be done by walking for 3 minutes at your normal speed and then walking 1 minute at a brisk pace. By raising and lowering your heart rate continuously through simple high-intensity workouts, you can have a better vascular function, burn more calories, and also enhance the body’s detoxification functions.
Another excellent exercise for your heart is a total-body, non- impact sport such as tennis or squash, swimming or rowing, Tae Kwondo or other Martial Arts. All of these involve the use of many different muscles so give your body a good workout without overtaxing any one area, but making your heart work hard to supply them all. You can also create your own ideal workout that fits your current fitness level by incorporating slow intervals.
Core workouts such as push-ups and squats help to strengthen the core muscles, providing your body a good foundation. People who are active all day long are generally healthier than those who exercise 30 minutes to an hour a day and live a sedentary lifestyle for the rest of the day. But bear in mind that not all exercises are good for the body. For instance, jogging or running on hard surfaces for long distance is probably the worst types of exercise although they do strengthen the heart. It’s because such endurance-type exercises wear the body out quickly and strain your joints in the long term, especially if you don’t have a pair or comfortable shoes or proper running techniques.
Equally, it is not advisable to perform any exercise that you have not trained or warmed up for. Doing so will only result in unwanted injuries and even trigger a heart attack due to adrenaline surge. If you have an exercise routine that you enjoy, then follow it and improve it by adding to it, rather than changing to something you may not enjoy.
Stress Reduction
Countless studies prove that psychological factors can contribute to heart disease and possible heart attacks. Anxiety, anger, depression, hostility as well as social isolation can affect your heart attack risk factor.
Workplace stress and financial stress can increase your risk of a heart attack by 50% . After the 9/11 2001 terrorist attacks, it was found people who felt high levels of stress just after the attack were twice as likely to develop high blood pressure and had a threefold chance of developing develop heart disease over the following two years. Similar results have been observed after large earthquakes and other natural disasters.
Environmental Conditions, Clean Air and Water
Water and air pollution are significant contributors to people developing heart disease and stroke (a stroke is like a heart attack to the brain). Staying indoor too often might not be as safe as you think because there’s indoor air pollution.
Pollution comes from a mixture of different contaminants such as fumes from household cleaning products, wood burning stoves, and fireplaces, second-hand cigarette smoke, vapors from cleaning products, paint solvents, pesticides, insecticides and carbon monoxide.
Exposure to low levels of CO (Cardio Monoxide) can cause a cardiovascular patient to have increased heart rhythm, chest pain, and irregularities that make it difficult to exercise. Indoor CO can come from inside furnaces, dryers, gas water heaters, space heaters, ranges, and fireplace sand wood stoves.
There is evidence that several minerals commonly found in drinking water may contribute to heart disease or aggravate its symptoms. Lead, arsenic, fluoride and chlorine exposure are all clearly associated with heart disease.