One of the most important constituents of a Good Life is Good Health. Yet over the past few years we are witnessing unprecedented rise in lifestyle ailments – including those pertaining to heart disease. Changing lifestyles that are characterized with stressed work environments, lack of exercise, improper diet etc., altogether have led to a situation where the average age of an individual getting diagnosed with a heart condition has come down in the last 5 years from 55 years to 40 years. 

Conscious living and awareness is the key to overcoming these hurdles. Every year the World Heart Federation celebrates 29^th September as World Heart Day with a single-minded objective of educating people on how to adopt a lifestyle that is healthy for one’s heart.

As a responsible Health Insurer, we celebrate good health and on this World Heart Day bring you 5 easy steps that can help you prevent & better manage heart ailments –

1. Healthy Diet – The most important thing, you need to follow in your routine is eating a healthy diet, rich in nutrients. After all, nutrition is the key to overall health. According to a research, a diet consisting of nutritious foods like 43 grams of almonds every day, will lower LDL (bad) cholesterol and reduce heart attacks. Other healthy heart food options that should be  on your platter are salmon, mackerel, green leafy vegetables, whole grains, avocados,  fish oil, walnuts, beans, dark chocolates etc.

• Stay Active – Just a healthy diet alone does not suffice. One must add walking, running or some other form of basic exercise in their daily routine. American Heart Association recommends a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercises every week. In a world where we are more connected than ever before, have access to information and mobile apps that helps one track their health status, calories etc., staying young and healthy is just a matter of effectively making use of these sources.

• Regular Health check-ups  – It is wise to periodically assess one’s health status. This helps in identifying any underlying ailments much in advance so that one is able to better manage the same.

• Say no to Smoking and tobacco – Even though the perils of smoking are known to one and all, still people tend to ignore this. Smoking doesn’t just impact an individual’s physical well-being but also their emotional and mental well-being. Excessive smoking aside cancers is among the key reasons for heart attacks and other heart related issues such as stroke and angina, moreover, the chemicals in tobacco harm the blood cells and damage the structure and function of blood vessels Smoking doubles the rate of heart diseases and that’s one added reason to quit smoking.

• Moderate your alcohol intake-  Consuming alcohol in moderate amount reduces the heart diseases but heavy drinking further increases the risks. It causes stress, dilutes the blood and hampers the blood flow.