Unhealthy eating, lack of exercising, high pollution level, and stress; all contribute to bad cardiovascular health.
Though medical science has achieved many milestones in treating unhealthy or improper functioning hearts, still we need to take care of our heart while making some basic changes in our lifestyle. We can also include regular health check-ups to ensure good cardiovascular health.
Follow these tips to keep your heart healthy:
Exercising
To keep your heart pumping in perfect rhythm, you need to spend at least 30 minutes in exercising like cardio, walking, or running. You can do it while watching your favourite TV programmes or listening to music.
Drink enough water every day
Drink 7-8 glasses of water to keep your body hydrated and energetic, resulting in the proper functioning of your heart. You can take a water bottle with you to sip up the water frequently.
Eat healthy food
Raw veggies, fruits, whole wheat bread, low-fat oils, and avoiding red meat contribute to maintaining good cholesterol level in your blood. Whereas, high cholesterol level leads to an unhealthy heart.
Quit smoking and consume limited alcohol
Do you know that smoking is one of the biggest factors that contribute to bad cardiovascular health? No matter you are a chain smoker or an occasional smoker, you need to quit it asap as it is one of the major habits decreasing the life of your heart. Smoke comes out of the cigarettes sticks in the muscles of your heart tissues, makes it weak to pump up the blood throughout the body. Even alcoholism is one of the major contributors to bad heart health,
Maintain BMI
The percentage of your body fat is a primary indicator of your good heart health. Body Mass Index or BMI indicates the fat percentage that covered your body. A balanced diet, regular exercising helps you to maintain your BMI to a healthy extent. BMI between 18.5 and 25 are considered at a healthy point.
Cut down refined sugar and salt
Sugar and sodium is the nutritional part of all-natural foods like fruits and vegetables. But, do you know that added or refined sugar is more harmful to our health in comparison to natural sugar. Added sugar increases calories only, without adding extra nutrition to it. To maintain healthy weight and fat, you must cut down on processed sugar and sodium.
Stay positive
Most importantly, you need to stay positive and stress-free to maintain good health of your heart. A stress-free mind keeps blood pressure in level, promoting excellent heart condition.
People with serious heart conditions, are advised to go through some invasive and non-invasive surgical procedures, which include:
- Heart surgery bypass
In this surgery, blood vessels from your leg or arm are taken to bypass the flow of blood, resulting in easier blood flow.
- Implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs)
Like a pacemaker, a device is implanted under the skin in your chest to give a shock to your heart ventricles in order to help constant pumping.
- Heart valve repair or replacement
The doctor may repair or cut the damaged portion of the valve and reconnect it for proper functioning. A prosthetic, new valve can be implanted if the exiting valve is totally damaged.
- Cardiac resynchronisation therapy (CRT), or biventricular pacing
Biventricular pacing is used to coordinate the pumping function with the help of left and right ventricles in the lower chamber of the heart.
- Ventricular Assist Devices (VADs)
This technique uses a mechanical pump that helps to pump blood from the lower chamber of our heart to the rest of the body.
- Heart Transplant
Heart transplant surgery remains as an only option when your heart is completely blocked and cannot be survived with any of the above-mentioned medical procedures.
You need to adopt a healthy lifestyle to keep your heart working in normal rhythm. Else, in any of the critical situation, you can take expert’s advice from one of the best cardiologists serving at the heart specialist branch of Park Hospital in Delhi & Gurgaon.
