Simple ways to boost your cardiovascular health
Cardiovascular health refers to the health of the cardiovascular system. Its definition is based on all the behaviors and health factors that, when optimal, are associated with better cardiovascular disease-free survival and quality of life. Choosing a healthy diet, being more active, and maintaining normal blood lipid and glucose levels are some of the strategies that help to maintain great cardiovascular health throughout our lives.
How to define cardiovascular health?
The American Heart Association has provided a number of metric definitions that can be used to classify poor, intermediate, or ideal cardiovascular health. These include diet, physical activity, smoking, sleep, weight, blood and glucose levels, and blood pressure.
Pursuing a healthier lifestyle from a young age is a great strategy for maintaining ideal cardiovascular health throughout our lives. This will result in a lower risk of developing cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension, strokes, atherosclerosis, peripheral artery disease, and vein diseases (1).
In this article, we will dive into the 7 ways to improve your cardiovascular health!
Healthy eating behaviors
Creating a healthy eating pattern represents an easy way to improve your cardiovascular health. This means preferring certain foods such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, plant-based proteins, fish and limiting sweetened drinks, alcohol, full-fat dairy products, and highly processed foods.
Avoiding trans-fat and partially hydrogenated oils that are contained in many commercial baked goods represents another good and easy strategy to improve your eating habits (1).
Polyphenols derived from olive leaves also have many beneficial effects and represent a promising, natural ingredient for supporting cardiovascular health (2).
Giving up smoking
Smoking is deleterious for your circulatory system as it increases the risk of stroke in both men and women. Cigarettes, e-cigarettes, and tobacco products contain many toxic chemicals, as do their smoke, and liquids. Several beneficial changes occur after quitting smoking and within one year after quitting, your risk of heart disease goes down with 50% (1).
Physical activity
Regular exercise and physical activity are associated with remarkable health benefits. Adults should do at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity a week or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity or a combination of both, throughout the week. Parking further away from your work place or taking the stairs instead of the elevator contributes to physical activity levels and improves health outcomes (1).
Sleep quality
Sleep plays a crucial role for overall health and well-being. Short sleep duration or poor sleep quality is associated with high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol levels, and atherosclerosis. These conditions can be prevented by aiming for an average of 7-9 hours of quality sleep a day (1).
Body weight management
Maintaining a healthy weight, defined as a body mass index between 18.5 and 24.9 for adults, can help reduce the risk of many heart problems such as cardiovascular disease, stroke, and high blood pressure.
A few strategies that can help to manage body weight include choosing a healthy diet, increasing physical activity levels, limiting alcohol, avoiding stress, and improving your sleep quality (1).
Stable blood lipid and glucose levels
Cholesterol is a fat-like substance that your body needs, in the right amounts, for good health. Unhealthy levels of cholesterol can lead to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, such as heart disease and stroke. Checking your cholesterol levels regularly can help you understand whether you have normal blood lipid levels.
Over time, high blood glucose levels can damage your health too. Blood glucose levels rise because of the glucose that enters the bloodstream and insulin, a hormone that helps the cells take up the glucose they can use for energy production.
A healthy diet that includes vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, legumes, nuts, plant-based proteins, and lean animal proteins, may help you manage cholesterol and glucose levels. Other strategies include being more active, quitting smoking, and maintaining a healthy weight (3).
Blood pressure control
Blood pressure is defined as the pressure of your blood on the walls of the arteries as your heart pumps it throughout your body. When your blood pressure is permanently higher than normal, the risk of heart attacks and strokes increases.
There are no signs or symptoms of high blood pressure, which means it is crucial to have regular check-ups to measure it. Simple changes to your lifestyle, such as eating healthy and being more active can help manage your blood pressure over time (4).
How to improve your cardiovascular health?
To summarize, choosing a healthy diet, quitting smoking, being more active, improving sleep health, maintaining normal blood lipid, and glucose levels, and managing your blood pressure are great strategies to lower the risk of developing cardiovascular disease thus, improving your cardiovascular health.
