New tips for a healthy heart that you will enjoy

New tips for a healthy heart that you will enjoy…

It’s well known that lifestyle changes such as losing weight, lowering cholesterol and quitting smoking reduce risk factors for heart disease. But did you know that drinking tea and laughing might also be beneficial? Two factors that most protect against heart disease are high levels of HDL (good cholesterol) and factors that reduce stress, such as laughter. In fact, a recent study by cardiologists found that people with heart disease were 40 percent less likely to laugh in a variety of situations compared to people of the same age without heart disease. In other words those who laughed more frequently were more heart healthy!

Reduce Stress with a Good Laugh

So why do stress reduction techniques like laughter reduce the risk of heart disease? To answer that, it helps to know how mental stress can potentially damage your heart.When you’re under a lot of stress there are chemicals that are released that cause blood pressure and the heart rate to go up. This causes platelets to clump together and all of those set up a series of reactions that could enhance the process of plaque formation and development. (Plaque build-up clogs arteries) So people who are under lots of stress all the time are at increased risk even if they don’t have a family history of heart disease or if they don’t have diabetes.Conversely, reducing stress, with laughter in particular, can have the opposite effect.

Laughter prescribed

Laughter is an active process and may have a direct impact on improving the lining of the blood vessels. Reducing stress also benefits the heart by lowering the blood pressure and heart rate. “The ability to laugh may have important implications in societies such as the U.S. where heart disease remains the number one killer, a leading cardiologist says. “We know foods low in saturated fat, will reduce the risk of heart disease. Perhaps regular, hearty laughter should be added to the list. “Other stress reduction methods can also help. Stress-reducing methods, including yoga and editation, may be quite helpful in reducing the risk of coronary events.

A New Reason to Drink Tea

In addition to laughter, drinking tea and eating antioxidant foods can also protect you against heart disease. In fact, cardiologists at the University of Maryland have concluded that drinking black or green tea (which contain antioxidants) may help reduce a potentially harmful constriction of blood vessels after a high-fat meal. Their study adds to a growing body of research that suggests antioxidant-rich foods (such as vegetables and fruits) and beverages may help to prevent heart disease.We’re talking about foods that contain anti-oxidants such as fruits and vegetables like tomatoes, which contain lycopene or broccoli that contain other protective antioxidants. Vegetables and fruits have natural antioxidants which are probably going to be more protective than supplements. If you’re going to drink tea, you might want to skip the milk. New research indicates that adding milk to tea negates the health benefits.

General Prevention Tips

• Eat a heart-healthy diet
• Improve cholesterol levels
• Exercise
• Control diabetes
• Control high blood pressure
• Control weight
• Manage stress
• Quit smoking

The bottom line for prevention is to follow a heart-healthy lifestyle. Maintain an ideal body weight and exercise atleast 30 minutes a day, seven days a week. Regular Screenings Screening is also an important way to prevent heart trouble. The earlier you start screening and treating it, the more heart disease you can prevent.