Heart Health Boosting Tips You Aren’t Doing Yet

One of the most important parts of staying healthy is maintaining good heart health to promote maximum longevity. The nice thing about heart health is while there are some things that you truly can’t control (such as genetics for instance), for the most part, much of it is very controllable.

Many know the classic tips to help improve heart health:

• Eat more dietary fiber

• Watch your sodium intake

• Exercise regularly

If you put these three things in place, you’re already off on a good foot and moving in the right direction.

But there is more you can do. Let’s go over some of the heart-health boosting tips that you might not be doing so you can see where you’re falling short.

Eat More Fat - The Good Kind

Sometimes people get stuck in their heads that they should just avoid all fats in order to keep their heart healthy. That isn’t the case though. It’s important that you avoid bad fats, but good fats can actually help boost your health.

This means loading up on unsaturated fats and omega-3 fatty acids. These are the fats that will do your body proud over the long run, boosting heart health and lowering your overall level of inflammation.

You can do this by cutting out all processed foods and instead, putting more focus on wholesome foods including nuts, seeds, and oily fish. Oily fish is the primary source of omega-3 fatty acids you want to add to your diet plan.

Take Five Deep Breaths

Stress is called the silent killer for good reason. Stress is one of the top things that can quickly put a damper on your health if you aren’t careful and send you down a path to destruction, so to speak.

If you aren’t sure of the best stress management techniques, at the very least, practice taking a few deep breaths. Simply sitting and taking five deep breaths, holding each at the top for a few minutes, and then releasing them can go a long way towards getting your stress under control.

This is a great tool to use any time of the day as it can be done anywhere.

Cut Back On Your Alcohol Intake

While alcohol is typically associated with liver disease, many don’t make the association with heart disease. But if you’re taking in quite a bit of alcohol on a daily basis, make no mistake that it is going to impact your heart.

Too much alcohol can set you up to experience higher cholesterol levels, which is then just one step away from full-blown heart disease.

Try and limit the number of alcoholic drinks you consume each week to just one or two if you can or omit it entirely from your meal plan.

Sit Less

Sitting less is also quite important in the grand scheme of things. Most people are good about recognizing the need to exercise regularly, however not many understand the importance of not sitting. Sitting for too long is also quite detrimental to your health and research has shown that it can increase your risk for both heart disease as well as stroke.

This doesn’t mean you need to spend the day exercising but do aim to get up as often as you can during the day. The more overall movement you get, the better.

So there you have a few of the main tips to know and remember about cutting back your risk for heart disease. If you practice these along with a good diet and exercise program, you’re well on your way to a good level of success with keeping your cholesterol in check.