7 Habits That Affect Heart Health

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The heart is one of the most crucial organs in the body that supports life. It is important to take good care of it.

Your heart is one of the most crucial organs in the body. It continually pumps oxygen-enriched blood throughout it. Therefore, it is essential that you properly care for your heart and avoid habits that can negatively affect heart health.

The habits and actions that you are currently doing are likely to determine the health of your heart in the future. Let's take a look at seven habits that can damage your heart.

Sedentary life

Sitting too much, as well as not being socially active, can damage your heart and impact your mental health. A sedentary lifestyle is one of the primary causes of depression, which can impact heart health as well as emotional health.

Individuals suffering from depression may have sticky platelets, which can cause blood clots to form. Furthermore, these sticky platelets can increase the risk of atherosclerosis, which can increase the risk of a heart attack.

Adopting an interactive social lifestyle can protect your heart health. Get off the couch and begin socializing again. Although initially tricky, an active lifestyle will become second nature.

Here are a few ways you can increase your activity levels as well as socializing more:

• Go for a walk with a friend
• Play a team sport like softball, basketball, or volleyball
• Join a club
• Find a workout partner or join a gym

Soon, you will enjoy a full-lifestyle lifestyle. You will spend time and talk with others, laugh often, and become more active, all of which will help improve your heart health.

Overindulgence in alcohol

An occasional alcoholic beverage is acceptable; however, drinking too much alcohol can cause a lot of harm to your heart. Excessive consumption of alcohol has been linked to heart disease. Alcohol raises blood pressure readings, which, over time, can damage your arteries and heart.

Alcohol is also filled with excess sugar and calories, which can increase triglyceride levels in the body. These excess calories can also cause weight gain and contribute to obesity, which raises the risk of heart disease. Finally, studies have shown that excessive alcohol consumption can disrupt normal heart rhythms.

Moderation is essential when it comes to consuming alcoholic beverages. To protect your heart, drink no more than one serving of alcohol if you are a woman or no more than two servings of alcohol if you are a man. If you regularly consume more than the recommended amount, it is time to decrease the number of alcoholic beverages you drink to improve heart health.

Consuming too much salt

The kidneys regulate sodium, the mineral found in table salt. Sodium is used by the body to regulate your kidneys and help balance fluid in the body. In addition to this, sodium is used to send nerve impulses throughout the body. Furthermore, sodium affects how your muscles function.

When you consume too much sodium, it pulls water into your blood vessels, increasing the volume of blood. When excess blood flows through the blood vessels, your blood pressure increases. Over time, high blood pressure can injure the walls of your blood vessels and lead to atherosclerosis. Additionally, high blood pressure makes the heart work harder, eventually resulting in heart damage.

Salt might be good for your health, but it can be dangerous to your heart when consumed in large amounts. Avoid excess salting of your foods. Furthermore, it eliminates salty foods, including chips, processed foods, and canned meat.

Stress

If you are like most adults, you are stressed out from trying to juggle work responsibilities and family life. Unfortunately, stress not only affects your mental health, but it can also damage your heart, increase the risk of a stroke, damage your blood vessels, and cause several lifestyle diseases that can eventually lead to heart disease.

When you are under stress, your blood pressure increases, straining your blood vessels and heart and causing permanent damage. Stress also raises adrenaline and other stress hormone levels. Increased stress hormones have been associated with increased inflammation and weight gain.

Luckily, there are several things you can do to lower your stress levels. Begin by learning to say no and pare down your activities. You can also reduce stress by exercising at least 30 minutes daily and practicing stress-reduction techniques like journaling, yoga, and meditation.

Lack of sleep

Sleep is as essential to the body as healthy eating, stress relief, and exercise. When you sleep, it repairs your organs, tissues, and cells. Experts recommend that adults sleep between 7 and 9 hours each night. Any less than this amount can harm your health and cardiovascular system.

You can do several things to improve the amount of sleep you get. It starts during the evening hours. Approximately 2 hours before bedtime, lower the lights in the main areas of your home and enjoy calming activities like reading a book. As you head to bed, drop your room darkening shades or curtains and lower the temperature by a couple of degrees. Finally, go to bed at the same time each night and get up at the same time each morning to reset your circadian clock.

Poor eating habits

Healthy eating is key to heart health. The food that you put into your body directly impacts your health. Eating unhealthy foods can increase the risk factors associated with poor heart health, including high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure.

For best results, eat a well-rounded meal. Carbohydrates should take up one-quarter of your plate, proteins another quarter, and fruits and vegetables the remaining half. Most people tend to overeat, especially when it comes to carbohydrates. Following the suggestions listed above when filling your plate can limit your carb consumption and improve your heart health.

Smoking

Smoking is not only bad for your respiratory health, but it is also bad for your heart. We all know the dangers of smoking, like lung cancer and many other diseases, but the truth is that smoking is even worse for your heart. Smoking not only affects you, but it also affects those around you. Passive smoking is just as dangerous as smoking when it comes to heart health.

Inhaling cigarette smoke is dangerous for your health. When you smoke, the carbon monoxide from cigarettes decreases the amount of oxygen in your blood. This decrease in oxygen damages your heart. Furthermore, cigarette smoking increases cholesterol levels, which increases the risk of cardiovascular disease.

If you smoke, there are many effective stop-smoking techniques available. No matter the smoking cessation product you use, quitting is complex, but it is not impossible. Although quitting is challenging, it is not as difficult as living with heart disease.

Making lifestyle changes requires dedication and patience; however, the benefits outweigh the work. There are several ways to begin making heart-healthy changes. Setting attainable goals can help you remain on task and keep reaching your goals.

Setting attainable goals helps reduce stress. If you become overwhelmed, your stress may seem impossible to control; however, when you make small changes and take them step by step, you can reach your goals.

Break your goals into manageable milestones. When you reach one of these milestones, celebrate your accomplishment. You can begin making other lifestyle changes once you have reached your first goal. Over time, you will change your entire life and improve your heart health.

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