Having a healthy heart is very
important for a number of reasons, but many people ignore their heart
health until there is an actual problem. This is particularly true with
younger males in their late twenties or thirties because they think they
are immune to heart problems regardless of their diet. However,
especially if you don’t eat properly or workout regularly, your heart
can actually be a ticking time bomb that will add endless complications
and expenses to your life. Having an unhealthy heart can manifest itself
in several different ways, but typically you will see high blood
pressure, poor circulation, and eventually even heart disease, a heart
attack, or a stroke.
Before
I start giving you my tips for having a healthy heart, I would like to
give you a bit of background on my personal experience. When I was in my
late twenties, I went into the doctor for something completely
unrelated to my heart only to find that I had extremely high blood
pressure. Now, I didn’t have the healthiest diet, and since I worked for
a company offering wedding sparklers for sale online, I wasn’t very
active either. I was told by my doctor that I needed a drastic lifestyle
change or I would need to get on blood pressure medications, and these
are the steps that I used to get my blood pressure under control.
Sodium Intake
One
of the most effect things I found for reducing your blood pressure in a
very big hurry is to reduce the amount of sodium you eat each day. In
fact, most people eat over a whopping 4000mg of sodium each day, which
is about 1600mg more than the recommended amount of 2400mg per day. But
here’s where it gets really bad; I calculated that I was eating over
6000mg per day on average. The biggest problem was that I was eating
fast food a few times per week, and when I ate at home it way usually
processed foods that came from a can, box, or out of the freezer. By
simply paying attention to the amount of sodium I was putting into my
body, I was able to drop my blood pressure over 15 points in under a
month.
Exercise
The
next part of the puzzle was getting some exercise, which has many other
benefits besides just lowering your blood pressure. As I said before, I
work in front of a computer most days so exercise was a foregone
conclusion to me. Be just getting up and walking about an hour per day, I
visibly see my body improving and I started feeling better in just a
few short weeks. Now I’m in the best shape of my life, and once you get
addicted to exercise you can’t stop because of how great your body
feels. You also end up feeling more energized and well-rested, so you
actually get more done in a day.
Dietary Supplements
The
last thing I did to get my blood pressure down to normal levels and
solidify my mission for a healthy heart was to start taking omega 3
fatty acids. In nature, Omega 3 is found in fish and flax seed and has
been shown to improve heart function, but eating enough of either of
those two items naturally would be a tall order indeed. Instead, you can
get fish oil pills or CO-Q10 which have large amounts of all the omega 3
fatty acids you need to give yourself the healthiest heart possible.
