Cardiovascular Health: Expert Shares Easy-To-Follow Steps To Prevent Heart Disease

Cardiac ailments are considered to be one of the severe health conditions and one of the leading causes of death. As per the reports by WHO, cardiac problems are estimated to kill atleast 1 in every 5 men and 1 in every 8 women. Heart ailments once associated commonly with old age, is now prevalent in the age group of 30-40 years. This makes it important to understand the root cause so that one can take preventive measures for the same. Poor lifestyle is one of the major causes of heart ailments among young population. Stress, lack of physical activity combined with smoking and alcohol consumption are some of the common reasons for this. But all of these are completely preventable if you follow a disciplined regime in your day to day lives.

This year's pandemic has shown that it is important to focus on health by changing lifestyle and improving immunity. People with pre-existing health conditions like cardiac problems, diabetes, hypertension are more prone to develop COVID 19.

It is crucial for people to understand about their heart's health and act on it immediately rather than wait for the body to show any signs.

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Here are few tips which can help you to have a healthy heart

Maintain a healthy weight:

Eating more than what you require is considered as overeating. It is a normal tendency for many individuals to go for an extra serving of a favourite meal. The food might be tasty and tempting, but be informed that your heart is not going to appreciate the habit of overeating. These days there are many options available to measure the food you eat. Slowly cultivate the habit of using measuring bowls and check how much you eat. Consuming healthy and limited quantities of food is a step towards maintaining optimum weight.

How to deal with it? Consume nutritional diet like green leaves, cereals, milk and milk products, eggs, meat, fish, various fresh fruits and vegetables.

Healthy body weight can help you prevent several diseases
Photo Credit: iStock

Manage your stress:

Stress triggers hormones in your body which can make your heart beat faster than usual. Dealing with continuous stress for longer duartion can damage your artery walls and cause high blood pressure.

How to deal with it? Yoga, meditation, listening to soft music to divert your mind, if these don't help then take a medical advice.

Avoid smoking and alcohol intake:

Smoking is one of the major risk factors for heart disease. Every single puff you inhale contains hundreds of chemicals like carbon monoxide which decreases the amount of oxygen in the red blood cells damaging the heart.

With alcohol, the issues that one has to deal with is obesity and high BP. Drinking too much effects the normal heart rhythm and can sometimes lead to heart failure.

How to deal with it? Reduce your intake of alcohol or just quit the habit. Try using nicotine patches to deal with smoking addiction and substitute alcohol with fresh juices.

Smoking is linked with several serious health conditions
Photo Credit: iStock

Exercise:

This habit helps in keeping many diseases at bay. Twenty minutes of walking everyday can improve your overall health. This is because exercise aids in better blood circulation of your body which directly helps in keeping your heart healthy.

How to deal with it? Skipping, jogging, walking, cycling, swimming or any other form of physical activities will improve your heart function.

A heart has a capacity to beat 2.5 billion times on an average throughout a lifetime. How to keep it healthy and strong totally depends on you. A change in lifestyle is all it takes to keep your heart healthy!

(Dr. Magesh Balakrishnan, Consultant - Cardiologist, Columbia Asia Hospital Sarjapur Road)

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