Heart disease is one of the diseases that kill people today. Fortunately, by making a few lifestyle changes you can reduce your risk of serious cardiovascular diseases. Below are some changes you can start working on today to improve your health and reduce disease risks.
Watch your weight
Excessive weight is large associated with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes and they are all contributors to heart disease. When you lose weight, you reduce your risks of developing the condition. To know what your ideal weight should be so that you can maintain it, you need to know what your BMI is. This is the body mass index obtained from calculating your weight against height. A BMI that falls between 18 to around 22.9 is considered to be ideal.
Quit smoking
Even with the awareness that smoking can cause lung cancer, it still proves to be a challenge for most people to quit smoking. However, what very many smokers do not know is that their chances of suffering heart attacks are even higher than those of developing the lung cancer. Smoking affects the heart by clamping down blood vessels because of the inhaled nicotine thereby forcing the heart to pump faster and harder so that blood can be pushes through the small vessels. The lining of the blood vessels is affected and it becomes easy for calcium and fat deposits to accumulate narrowing the arms even further. Oxygen supply to the tissues is also reduced by the carbon monoxide that's found in cigarette smoke. Make up your mind to quit smoking and come up with a strategy to work on this and get all the help you can get to make it a success.
Get active
Busy lifestyles have made a great number of people active and it has in turn exposed them to risks of heart disease. Regular exercise can go a long way in keeping the risks minimal and it also helps improve your overall health. Being active does not necessarily mean hitting the gym even though it is still a good idea. It can be made up of simple and enjoyable physical activities such as walking, swimming, jogging and yoga. Besides keeping heart disease at bay and other disorders, regular exercises can also help you lose weight in a healthy way, relieve stress and also help you sleep better. Moderate exercises daily can greatly improve your health.
Give up unhealthy eating
Processed foods, sugary foods and oily or fatty foods are some of the foods you want to avoid. The junk foods are quite unhealthy and they can put you at risk of heart disease and a number of other chronic diseases. Choose foods that are low in sugar, sodium, cholesterol and fat but those that are still high in fiber. Take the time to know your foods so you are aware of which foods are healthy and then you can incorporate them in your diet. The more you know, the easier it will be to make the right choices.