6 Smart Ways to Prevent Heart Disease

What are some ways to prevent heart disease? What are some of the ways to avoid heart disease? What are some smart ways to prevent coronary heart disease? And what are some of the best ways to avoid heart disease?   

1.    Manage Your Anger

According to some scientists, when a man or woman fails to control his or her anger, it can lead to heart attacks.

When one gets angry, the body’s “fight or flight” response is activated—there is increased production of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline which quicken the heart rate.

Additionally, the blood vessels of the heart contract (or tighten), the passageway through them narrows and, as a result, blood flows through them under pressure and this high blood pressure can damage the lining of the arteries of the heart and the heart muscle as well. This can cause poor delivery of blood to the heart, which can increase a person’s risk of suffering a heart attack.

Therefore, do your best to control your anger when people ridicule, insult, irritate or provoke you.

Here are a few things you can do to manage your anger:

1. Breathe in deeply for a count of 5, hold your breath for a count of 8, and then release your breath slowly through your mouth for a count of 5. This will help to slow down your breathing rate and heart rate and signals will be sent to your brain that you are not threatened in any way and that will make you calm down.
2. Immediately you start feeling angry, start counting 1, 2, 3… Keep on counting and it will take your mind off the source of irritation and help to distract you so that you can control yourself.    
3. Remind yourself of something valuable that you have lost before as a result of anger. When you recall the pain of that loss, it will deter you from getting angry because you will feel that if you don’t take care and you repeat that mistake again, you may suffer another loss and that can serve as a deterrent to help you keep yourself in check.
4. Write in your journal or diary when you are annoyed. You may write an email to a friend, write an article about how it hurts when people annoy you, write an encouraging letter to a friend who is going through a rough time, or just write anything that comes into your head into your jotter or your diary. As you transfer your thoughts and feelings onto paper, the bitterness and emotional toxicity will leave your system so that you can feel relaxed and less tense.
5. Ask yourself questions such as, “What will I gain if hold onto this anger and I explode? Will it make me a better person? Will the people who look up to me and admire me continue to respect me if I do something silly as a result of my anger? Will it solve the problem that caused this anger? And anyway, what will I lose if I choose to use other ways to resolve this disagreement?” when you are very angry. Ruminate upon these questions and reflect on them and you will see that there are other ways, more healthy ways, of dealing with the conflict, which will make it easier for you to calm down so that you can explore the other avenues to seek redress.
6. Say a prayer. Research carried out by a group of American and Dutch scientists has revealed that praying can help to reduce anger, lower aggression and make it easier for one to control himself when he or she is provoked. Prayer will help you to look at the incident that caused you to get angry from a different perspective and you may see that you also contributed to the altercation, which will make it easier for you to show some magnanimity towards your adversary.
7. Accordingly, you may say a prayer such as this one when you are angry, “Dear God, be merciful to me a sinner. LORD, I give You the glory for forgiving me for all the sins I have committed against you. I thank You that despite all the bad things that I have done, despite all the terrible things I have done to provoke, irritate, and annoy You, You still love me and show mercy to me. LORD, Isaac has made me angry and I feel like revenging. But when I think about the fact that I have also done things to make You angry, and when I think about the fact that I have also annoyed other people one way or the other, I see that I have to humble myself. Please help me to control myself. Please help me to get rid of these angry feelings. Please help me to control myself so that I will not destroy m relationship with Isaac. Amen.”

2.    Laugh Everyday

Stress can cause heart disease, but laughing is one of the interesting ways to prevent heart disease—laughter can help one to deal with stress so that he or she can avoid getting heart disease. According to a study carried out at the Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine and published in the Journal of Epidemiology, people who laugh every day can lower their risk of developing heart disease.

Laughter causes the blood vessels of the heart to release nitric oxide, which causes the inner lining of the blood vessels to expand by about 30%. Nitric oxide also makes the arteries to relax. The relaxed arteries allow blood to flow through them easily so that the heart will receive the oxygen and nutrients it needs to function properly.

So, listen to funny clips and laugh when you are preparing to go to work in the morning, listen to jokes in your car as you drive to work, and also in the evening before you go to bed.

Additionally, do laughter yoga for 30 minutes every weekend—watch comedy movies for one hour and try to laugh for at least 30 minutes.

3.    Drink Natural Lemon Juice Often

High blood pressure is one of the risk factors for heart disease—high blood pressure can cause wear and tear of the blood vessels of the heart and the heart tissues and that damage of the blood vessels and the heart muscle can increase one’s risk of getting a heart attack.

One of the ways you can make sure that your blood pressure never goes up is to drink natural lemon juice every day. A study published in the Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism has revealed that drinking lemon juice every day can help to lower blood pressure.

Lemon juice contains citric acid, polyphenol, and ascorbic acid. The citric acid promotes the absorption of calcium and magnesium from the gut and these two minerals may help to lower systolic blood pressure.

So, instead of drinking tea or coffee every morning when you have your breakfast, choose to drink two tablespoons of natural lemon juice mixed with warm water and honey. Alternatively, before you drink water every time, add two tablespoons of fresh, natural lemon juice to it.

4.    Reduce Your Intake Of Cholesterol

This is one of the easiest ways to prevent heart disease. There is evidence that there is a connection between consuming a lot of bad cholesterol and heart disease—eating too much cholesterol can cause atherosclerosis, which can damage the blood vessels that supply blood to your heart, and it can also damage the tissues of your heart, thereby increasing your risk of developing a heart attack.

So, choose to eat foods which can help to lower the levels of cholesterol in your body such as these foods, or these foods.

5.    Reduce Your Consumption Of Unhealthy Fats

Research shows that eating too much unhealthy fats in your diet can increase your risk of developing heart disease—bad fats contribute to the buildup of plaque in the arteries that lead into the heart. This causes a narrowing of those arteries and so blood flowing to the heart muscle is slowed down or is blocked. The blood supplies nutrients and oxygen to the heart and so if blood flow to the heart is slowed down or impeded, the person can suffer a heart attack.

So, reduce your consumption of unhealthy fats such as butter, lard, egg yolk, pork, and cheese. Ensure that at most only 10% of your calories come from these kinds of fat.

Rather, consume healthy fats, or monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, found in foods such as canola oil, sunflower oil, olive oil, soy oil, tiger nuts, shea nuts, Brazil nuts, peanuts, sesame seeds, watermelon seeds, pumpkin seeds, salmon, sardines, and tuna.

6.    Exercise Every Day

Exercise is good for the heart—it helps to strengthen the heart so that it can work efficiently and effectively even under strenuous conditions. So when you exercise every day, your heart will be resilient and that will reduce your risk of developing heart disease.

Here are a few exercises you can do every day to help you develop a strong heart:

• Sprint over a distance of 100 meters every Monday to Friday morning before you go to work. Try to finish the sprint in less than 15 seconds.
• Sprint over a distance of 200 meters every Saturday and Sunday morning. Do your best to finish the sprint in less than 25 seconds.
• Jump a rope continuously for 30 minutes every day.
• Do 50 push-ups every morning before you go about your day’s activities.
• Run a distance of 5 miles every day.
• Ride a bicycle continuously for 30 minutes every day.

You may also do this exercise or use these guidelines to help you keep your heart healthy.

 

Conclusion

Some of the ways to prevent heart disease are: manage your anger properly, laugh every day, drink natural lemon juice every day, consume a little amount of cholesterol, eat little unhealthy fats, and make sure you exercise every day.

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