Preventing Heart Disease, Is It Possible?

Even individuals who live relatively healthy lives can be affected; after all, the leading cause of death in women and men in the United States is heart disease.

In 2006, heart disease caused 26% of deaths — that's more than one in every four people who died from heart disease — in the United States; according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention online.

Stress causes the release of certain hormones that contribute to the symptoms of heart disease. By being proactive, we can all take charge in playing a major role in preventing heart disease. The first step is to make some basic lifestyle changes to promote heart health.

Heart Disease Risk Factors

There are certain Risk Factors that can increase your chances of getting heart disease.

The risk factors are; hypertension (consistently high blood pressure), diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity, reduced physical inactivity. If you have one of these risk factors, you may want to take a serious look at what you can do to help with preventing heart disease. If you have two or more of these risk factors, talk to your doctor.

Heart Disease Prevention

Here are some basic lifestyle changes that can help in preventing heart disease:

1. Exercise 30-60 minutes a day. When you exercise it releases endorphins, these are natural chemicals in the body that have a calming effect on your stress levels. These endorphins keep your body from feeling the threat of stress, so your body does not release stress hormones at an increased rate. The reduction in the amount of stress hormones your body releases means less symptoms of heart disease for you. Simple, right?

Exercise also decreases the production of homocysteine in the body. Your body needs to have a balance of this enzyme; if there is too much it will increase your chances of a heart attack.

If you feel you don't have the time to exercise 30-60 minutes a day, start slow. Incorporate 10-20 minutes into your day, and then increase it as you are able. Even the smaller things count, such as taking the stairs to your office, walking the kids to school, or cleaning up the house.

Not only will exercise help in preventing heart disease, you will also find that it lifts your mood and increases yourself esteem.

2. No Nicotine! Smoking increases your chances of heart disease and cigarettes contain some 4,900 chemicals that cause major damage to your body and heart; the most known damage is the cause of atherosclerosis. Most people smoke when they feel stressed in order to get a buzz that will calm them down. But a buzz that lasts only a couple of minutes can do some serious hard to your body.

When you smoke the cigarette is releasing carbon monoxide. As you take it into your body it replaces some of the oxygen in your blood with this carbon monoxide. This raises your blood pressure and makes your heart work even harder for oxygen.

3. Talk regularly to your physician about your heart health. They will keep you up to date on what to do to prevent heart disease, and they can tell you when to get your regular screenings.

4. Your outlook. The way you look at the situations in your life can have a major impact on your stress levels. Do you see the hardships in your life as another challenge, or as a big problem? Having a positive view can help you maintain a good outlook, even though at times it can be hard, you need to make a conscious effort to stay positive.

5. Breathing Exercises. Studies show that breathing exercises lower your blood pressure, aid in weight loss, improve circulation, and decrease your overall stress level. These are all things that your doctor will tell you to get under control when you display the symptoms of heart disease. Breathing exercises are a simple prevention technique for these risk factors.

Here are some other helpful Heart Disease Prevention pages on this site.

Click here for more information on the relationship between Heart Disease and Stress

Click here for suggestions on how to maintain a Heart Healthy Diet

Click here to find out how the antioxidant Glutathione Boost can help you.


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