Annually on the last Sunday of September, the world celebrates World Heart Day, helping draw attention to diseases of the cardiovascular system, their treatment and prevention.
The heart is the body’s main organ, requiring special care and attention. How to protect the heart from adverse effects of ecology, harmful products, and other factors, and feel good?
Many cardiologists argue it is easier to prevent heart disease than treat it. Frequent fatigue, stress, disorders in the nervous system, an unhealthy diet, exacerbation of chronic diseases – all cause problems for our heart and blood vessels and worsen our health and well-being.
To protect your heart, cardiologists advise universal recommendations for the prevention of many heart diseases.
What protects the heart?
Physical activity
Morning or evening exercises, walking, and sports help keep blood vessels toned, normalize heart rate, fill the heart with oxygen, improve the functioning of internal organs, and establish metabolism. It is necessary to choose an acceptable set of exercises and a sport with the doctor/trainer. Excessive physical activity, which is conducted with no control, may harm, cause collapse (cardiovascular insufficiency), hypoxia (oxygen lack in the heart muscle), hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (thickening of the walls of ventricles).
If, for any reason, the sport is contraindicated, walk more in the fresh air as it is the best way to enrich blood and the heart with oxygen.
Healthy diet
Food is the external and internal mirror of the body. What we eat affects our appearance and the state of internal organs, especially the heart. Fast food, confectionery and pastry products, soda and alcoholic beverages can contribute to cholesterol, blood clots, and exert great pressure on the heart and blood vessels.
You can ask: “What can I eat to protect my heart?” The answer is simple: a treasure trove of minerals, vitamins and dietary fibres which activate the work of the heart and blood vessels. These are contained in bran, lean meat, dairy products, fish, vegetables, fruits, seafood, nuts and legumes. It is desirable to exclude salt, sugar, fatty and spicy dishes from the diet or limit their consumption for a full-fledged working heart.
According to statistics, this menu provokes the emergence of many heart disease (infarction, stroke, heart attack). For example, to know how to protect yourself from the heart attack, it is enough to daily eat as many greens, vegetables and fruits as possible, and also permissible doses of dried apricots, prunes and raisins. Such food fills the heart with a useful set of micronutrients and significantly reduces the risk of heart attack.
Continuous monitoring of the heart function
Planned visits to a cardiologist are necessary. However, it is important to carry out daily diagnostics of the cardiovascular system for people who are in the special risk zone (over 45-50 years old, has any kind of heart-related disorder etc). For this purpose, there are special mobile applications for heart testing, such as, Goodsomnia Lab.
Such applications in tandem with portable EKG devices allow at any time to independently measure the pulse, heart rate frequency, and heart muscle function after jogging, fast walking, workout in the gym or sleeping. The results and their evaluation help detect abnormalities and start timely treatment when a doctor confirms the diagnosis.
Portable ECG devices (mobile cardiographs) are compact, small in weight and can be quickly connected to a smartphone for information transfer. With the help of app functions, it is possible to explore ECG and construct graphs of work of the heart for a chosen period in a few minutes. So you can track your heart function at any time, under any circumstance, and this helps to reliably identify and eliminate the causes of poor health.
How can I protect my heart in addition to this?
Additional preventive measures for the cardiovascular system are necessary in the following cases:
- overweight (diet selection and weight control);
- sleep problems (overcoming insomnia or sleep disorders);
- harmful habits (e.g. smoking).
In general, the choice of method or ways to protect your heart depends on the overall health condition (past diseases, presence of chronic diseases, congenital or acquired pathologies).
We always recommend consulting a cardiologist about the most appropriate and optimal preventive measures for the heart. However, the sense of proportion must be followed, regardless of whether you work, rest, eat or exercise.
