The Habits Of Health Optimize Your Heart

By Wayne Andersen, DO, MD

Optavia

. http://www.drwayneandersen.com

More Heart Disease, Stroke and Diabetes Articles

The Habits Of Health Optimize Your Heart

Changing our focus from reaching for what is wrong to creating what we want in terms of our health is critical. We make over 1,000 small choices a day, which either have a health-giving value or are eroding our overall physical health. Our health is heavily influenced by five major points

1. Stop smoking if you are. Smoking causes narrowing of your arteries, nicotine squeezes the vessels caliper, increasing both blood pressure and heart rate, introduces the poisonous gas carbon monoxide and lowers the supply of oxygen. Cessation is the only option, if you truly want to have a healthy heart.

2. The habit of healthy motion is the most direct method to lower you risk of dying of heart disease. Increasing your daily activity, both work and play, can make all the difference.

Choosing the stairs over the elevator, standing rather than sitting, using a rake for the leaves rather than the blower or simply opening our cans with a can opener all have a small but positive effect on our heart.

Throw in a 30-minute period of more intense exercise such as running, interval training, swimming 4-5 days a week and you significantly increase the health benefit to your heart. This level of exercise helps prevent heart disease, stroke as well as diabetes, which increases the risk to your heart.

3. The habit of healthy eating also dramatically affects your heart health. The most obvious immediate risk from unhealthy eating is becoming overweight or obese. A 10% reduction in your weight lowers your risk of disease by 50%.

4. The amount and quality of your sleeping is a critical component to heart health. The lack of quality sleep increases your risk of weight gain, immunity problems and raises your inflammatory markers increasing your heart risk directly. Ideally you need 6-7 hours of quality uninterrupted sleep each and every night.

5. Habits of healthy thinking. When our mind is out of sorts our heart is at increased risk. From inflammation, to raising our blood pressure we are not designed to be connected 24-7 to an electronic chain of cell phones, computers and iPads. Do some yoga, take a warm bath, make your home warm and cozy there are a few of the respites you can create to offset this chaotic modern world. Also spend more time with people you enjoy, get outside to the beach or forest, ride a bike and laugh more.