10 tips to avoid heart disease and control your cardiovascular health (quick, easy and actionable)

Regular exercise has many positive effects on your hearts health, which include:

• Reducing blood pressure

• Decreasing the risk of developing diabetes mellitus

• Maintaining a healthy body weight

• Reducing inflammation around the body

• Reduces the collection of stress hormones in the body

• Can reduce the resting heart rate

• Increases high-density lipoproteins (HDL), which are the good cholesterol, and helps control triglycerides

• Increases the efficiency of oxygen extraction within the body's muscles

It is suggested that a combination of both aerobic and resistance exercises has the best effect on improving your heart's health.

A healthy diet is the best way to avoid heart disease. It has been demonstrated that having 8 servings of fruit and vegetables reduces the risk of heart disease by 22% [3]. Similarly, adopting a Mediterranean diet, which consists of an oil-based, fish and vegetable diet.

The Mediterranean diet has also been shown to improve the heart's health by producing cardioprotective chemicals within the body.

Read more about the Mediterranean diet here...

Regular exercise and eating healthily are good ways to maintain a healthy weight. Carrying extra weight can make someone more susceptible to other heart-related diseases, as well as diabetes. Control over the body weight helps maintain healthy blood pressure and level of cholesterol within the blood.

Normal blood pressure is 120/80 (systolic blood pressure/diastolic blood pressure). High blood pressure is commonly referred to as hypertension. Hypertension is often a silent disease.

However, the consequences of undetected or uncontrolled blood pressure in the blood vessels are severe and can lead to premature stroke, heart attack, heart failure and many other cardiovascular-related diseases.

Therefore, controlling and maintaining your blood pressure within the 120/80 guidelines is essential for your long-term health. Often, hypertension is diagnosed randomly or accidentally via a random blood pressure reading at the doctor [4].

Cholesterol and triglycerides, when mixed with other chemicals in the blood, can form hard, thick blockades called plaque within the vessels of the circulatory system. This process of plaque formation and the hardening of the vessels within the body is called atherosclerosis. These blockades predominantly reside in the vessels close to the heart and brain.

As these plaques form, blood flow is restricted through that region of the circulatory system. Depending on the location of the occlusion determines the consequence to the body.

Unfortunately, the body's response to the restriction in blood flow is to work harder, but this, in turn, accelerates the process of atherosclerosis. This is why the process of atherosclerosis is so deadly and why it is essential that we control our cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

Sugar is found in almost all the food we eat. However, high blood sugar levels can damage our heart, kidneys over time and eyes and increase our risk of developing diabetes.

Due to uncontrolled blood sugar levels, diabetes is a severe risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Blood sugar levels can be controlled throughout the day through our diet and having regular meals (including snacks).

A healthy, high-fibre breakfast and wholegrain snacks are some simple steps to control our blood sugar throughout the day.

When alcohol is drunk excessively, it can raise blood pressure and increase the caloric intake of someone, which raises their body weight and increases the amount of circulating cholesterol and triglycerides. As previously mentioned, maintaining our blood pressure and body weight is critical for reducing our risk for heart disease.

Stress has many links to causing heart disease. Stress can raise blood pressure, become a trigger for a heart attack and lead to the abuse of common substances that are also known risks for cardiovascular disease (such as alcohol and cigarettes).

Stress can be managed through exercise, listening to peaceful music, focusing on sometimes calming and meditation.

Sleeping is when your body can relax, repair and revive itself in preparation for tomorrow. Most adolescent development occurs while we sleep.

Failure to get enough repeated sleep can increase our risk of developing high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity - all factors known to be individual risk factors for heart disease.

Our blood pressure naturally reduces during sleep, called nocturnal blood pressure. Some do not experience nocturnal blood pressure, significantly increasing their risk for cardiovascular disease [5].

Therefore, having a good sleep pattern and ensuring enough sleep is vital for recovering and maintaining our cardiovascular health. Normal sleep ranges from 7-9 hours of rest.

You can read more about the importance of sleep here...