There are many tips that can help maintain heart health. In this article, we will review the most important advice from leading cardiologists, their daily strategies, and their guidance on how to keep your heart healthy.
1. Buy Fresh Fruits and Vegetables
Fresh fruits and vegetables are better than packaged and preserved ones because they don’t contain preservatives, and they also taste better.
It’s best to eat them to get more nutrients—such as dietary fiber and vitamins C and A—that are proven to be essential for heart and vascular health.
2. Avoid Saturated Fats
If your fingers look shiny or greasy after eating something, it likely contains trans fats or saturated fats.
Saturated fats, like those found in sweets, red meat, and fried foods, build up as fat deposits in the arteries, leading to heart attacks and strokes.
Use healthy oils such as grape seed oil, which has a higher content of polyunsaturated fats.
3. Read Nutrition Labels on Food
There’s a lot of sugar in our food, including almost all cereals, as well as children’s sweets. Type 2 diabetes is directly linked to the level of obesity in the population.
More fatty tissue requires more insulin, and at some point, the pancreas can’t produce enough to compensate for the rising blood glucose level—this is when diabetes develops.
Diabetics have higher rates of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and kidney disease, all of which accelerate atherosclerosis and heart disease.
4. Monitor Your Caloric Intake
If you’re overweight, you should start monitoring your calorie consumption.
There are smartphone apps that track all your calories.
Some people say, “I don’t eat much,” but that’s not the point—some unhealthy foods contain over 400 calories in just a small amount!
All of this leads to obesity, and consequently, heart and vascular diseases.
5. Follow a Diet Rich in Healthy Fats
Don’t deprive yourself of heart-healthy fats. Enjoy plenty of fish, but use only olive oil for cooking.
Have a handful of nuts as snacks.
6. Eat Raw Vegetables While Preparing Dinner
Make this a daily habit. While preparing dinner and feeling hungry, take the opportunity to eat some raw vegetables.
7. Eat Complex Carbohydrates
Try preparing meals that include whole wheat, chickpeas, long-grain rice, and beans.
Complex carbohydrates are absorbed more slowly in the small intestine and do not cause large fluctuations in glucose levels.
8. Stick to Low-Fat Dairy Products
Low-fat dairy provides calcium, vitamin D, and protein without or with minimal saturated fat.
Studies have shown that low-fat dairy is linked to maintaining optimal weight and reducing cardiovascular diseases.
You can have fat-free yogurt or milk before bedtime.
9. Avoid Fried Foods
Reused cooking oil turns into trans fats, which clog the heart.
Prepare French fries at home in a healthy way:
Cut the potatoes, place them in an oven bag with olive oil, salt, and pepper, then bake them.
You can add any spices you like, such as garlic or chili.
10. Avoid High-Salt Products
Our bodies don’t need much salt, so we should monitor how much we consume, especially if we have high blood pressure.
Salt causes fluid retention and raises blood pressure, increasing the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
11. Never Buy Fruit Juices
Fruit juice is high in sugar, and when juicing, beneficial fiber is wasted.
Soluble fiber helps maintain heart health; when consumed, it acts like a sponge that absorbs bad cholesterol and carries it out of the body.
12. Increase Your Physical Activity as Much as You Can
When your body is inactive, there’s a greater chance of developing cardiovascular risk factors.
Try taking the stairs instead of the elevator or parking farther away from your destination.
Physical activity lowers blood pressure, improves the health of blood vessel lining cells, and lowers bad cholesterol.
Running in the morning sunlight is one of the few interventions that improve cholesterol levels.
Try to make your activity as easy as possible—like brisk walking, which is excellent for the heart.
If you don’t have time for continuous moderate exercise, do at least 10 minutes of activity daily.
Aim for at least 150 minutes per week—this has been proven to prevent heart disease.
You can also use a stationary bike or treadmill while watching TV. The less exhausting the activity, the more consistent you’ll be.
13. Reduce Red Meat Consumption
Choose lean cuts and don’t eat too much—one slice is enough.
14. Drink Water During Exercise
Starting exercise while feeling dehydrated raises your heart rate, making the workout more exhausting and uncomfortable for your muscles.
It’s important to drink water during exercise because dehydration can be dangerous due to changes in sodium levels.
15. Avoid Processed Foods
Avoid bringing fast food home. Processed red meats like sausages, hot dogs, and ready-made sandwiches are high in salt and increase your risk of cardiovascular diseases.
Manufactured sauces also contain a lot of sodium.
16. Seek Humor
Surround yourself with funny people. Laughter improves heart health by reducing stress and improving blood flow through vessel dilation.
17. Distance Yourself from Negative People
Negative conversations raise heart rate and blood pressure, and stress increases the secretion of cortisol, norepinephrine, and adrenaline—all harmful to the cardiovascular system.
When you’re happy, your heartbeat becomes more regular, so it’s good to be around positive people as much as possible.
18. Spend Time in Nature
Instead of sitting on electronic devices, take your kids for a walk and enjoy nature while avoiding pollution, which is proven to harm the cells lining blood vessels.
Recent studies have shown that spending more time in oxygen-rich environments improves overall heart health.
The World Health Organization has shown that even small green spaces in cities benefit cardiovascular health and reduce mortality rates.
19. Get Enough Sleep
Stress caused by lack of sleep harms heart health. You should sleep six to eight hours to reduce this issue and repair oxidative stress—an imbalance between free radicals and antioxidants in the body.
To help relax and sleep well, keep the TV out of the bedroom, don’t keep your phone nearby, and avoid caffeine in the evening.
20. Take Care of Your Mood and Mental Health
Depression and anxiety have a major impact on cardiovascular health. They can cause blood vessels to constrict and increase heart rate.
Improving mental and emotional health has the opposite effect on cardiovascular risk.
21. Avoid Smoking
A Swedish study of over 20,000 men found five health factors that reduced the risk of heart attack by 86%, including not smoking, exercising regularly, and following a healthy diet.
Another study found that regular exercise and quitting smoking significantly reduced the likelihood of developing coronary heart disease.
22. Get the Flu Vaccine
Seasonal flu waves in the community are actually accompanied by a slight increase in acute cardiovascular diseases.
If your body is fighting the flu and you have a pre-existing heart condition—whether you know about it or not—there’s a risk that symptoms will intensify due to the flu.
23. Visit Your Doctor Regularly
Sometimes you might have high blood sugar or high blood pressure without knowing it.
Regular checkups allow you to monitor these factors.
If your blood sugar is elevated, you might be able to make lifestyle changes before it turns into diabetes.
24. Pay Attention to Women’s Risk Factors
Women face certain cardiovascular risk factors due to their reproductive life stages.
Some conditions, like autoimmune disorders, are more common in women.
Additionally, when women enter menopause, they lose estrogen’s protective effects on blood vessels, including cholesterol regulation.
If you’re in the pre-menopausal stage, discuss risk factors with your doctor.
25. Look at Your Family Medical History
If one or both of your parents had high blood pressure during their lifetime, you’re more likely to develop it later.
By modifying your lifestyle, you can delay the onset of high blood pressure for years or make it more manageable.
26. Get Regular Heart Checkups
Routine heart scans are useful for people who have already had a heart attack.
It’s a quick, low-radiation CT scan that can predict early coronary artery disease.
27. Take Statins to Lower Cholesterol
If you have high cholesterol or a strong family history of heart disease, you should take cholesterol-lowering statin medications under medical supervision.
Finally, after reviewing these medical heart health tips, there’s also a popular belief that helping others improves your heart health!
Canadian doctor Anmol Kapoor said:
“When you help someone and see gratitude in their eyes and they hug you, it works like a magic pill for the heart and soul!”
