The month of February is often highlighted for love and romance. Everywhere you turn you see heart decorations, heart cards and heart candy. Is your heart healthy? How do you know? The reality is when we can’t see a part of our body or notice any associated symptoms, we assume it is healthy. This holds especially true for the heart. Since we can’t see the heart’s condition with our eyes, it often gets neglected. Excluding COVID -19, heart disease is the #1 cause of death for both men and women in the United States. In this article I would like to give you some natural tips to keeping your heart healthy.
Each year the costs associated with heart disease in the United States soar into the hundreds of billions of dollars. This amounts from healthcare costs, medications and lost productivity. Another important fact is that heart disease does not discriminate by gender or ethnicity. It can affect anyone at any age.
Nearly 50% of the time, the first sign of heart problems is death from a heart attack. In these cases, these people didn’t know they were a statistic until it was too late. My encouragement to you would be to do your best to keep your heart healthy, even in the absence of symptoms.
Your heart muscle works harder than any other muscle. It never gets a vacation. Throughout your lifetime your heart will beat approximately two-three billion times. Light aerobic exercise (walking, jogging, cycling or swimming) of 30 minutes per day will help keep your heart in tip-top shape. Changing up your routine every couple of weeks will help keep you from getting bored.
When it comes to a heart-healthy, conscious diet there are many sources online and in print. Your food is your body’s fuel source. If you put bad food in, you will get a poor performance out of your body. Due to so many dietary resources, I’ll keep my recommendations short. The key to a healthy heart diet is to do most of your food shopping along the edges of the grocery store. If you must travel down the inner aisles at the grocery store, the trips should be few and far between. It is also crucial to read packaging labels and know what you are truly buying.
Here are the core basics to a healthy heart diet:
•drink more water (water should be your primary liquid of choice and you should try to consume half your body weight in ounces of water each day)
•eat more fresh fruits and vegetables
•lower your fats
•lower your sodium (buy fresh or frozen versus canned food)
•ditch the white table salt and use pink Himalayan/Mediterranean salt
•decrease your portion sizes (if you need to eat more, choose more vegetables)
When it comes to body weight, an ideal benchmark would be to keep your Body Mass Index below 25. Your body mass index is calculated by taking your weight (in pounds) and dividing it by your height (in feet). Additionally, you want to keep your waist size (in inches) less than half your height size (in inches). Heart-healthy supplements that can help with your daily diet are: Omega-3 Essential Fatty Acids, Optimal multi-vitamin, and Co Q10 (if you’re on a statin cholesterol lowering drug) can be beneficial.
Physical exams by your family physician can help detect early warning signs not yet manifested into symptoms. Remember that many people never have early warning symptoms of heart problems. Death from a heart attack is often the first sign of heart problems.
Lastly, you should visit your family chiropractor for a spinal exam. Damage and changes to the spine can occur in the absence of pain or symptoms. These degenerative changes can then affect the spinal cord and nerves that supply signals to the heart. Science has proven that degenerative changes to the spine, brought on by normal daily life experiences, can lead to nerve irritation and damage to the organs attached to those nerves.
As you are reminded of love, romance and connecting with your “emotional heart” this month, I hope you are also reminded to care for your body’s physical heart. It’s easy to make a change when you start with one change at a time. Start getting to bed a half hour earlier or start taking a 30-minute walk each day. I encourage you to start today, start small and be consistent.
-by Dr. Brandon Crouch
About the author: Dr. Brandon Crouch is a Chiropractor with Crouch Family Chiropractic. He is an advocate for being proactive when it comes to your health and encourages people to make healthy, informed decisions. For more information you can go online at: www.crouchfamilychiro.com.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any disease or condition. You should consult your doctor before changing your diet, supplementation program or exercise program.
