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Ginseng and Heart Health

How To Keep Your Heart Healthy (5 Heart Disease Prevention Tips!)

Place your right hand over your left chest. Feel that? The thumping you feel comes from your heart – the epicenter of your body, responsible for pumping oxygen-rich blood through your arteries to every part of you. Your ticker does this 24/7, all day and all night. Frankly, it’s the one organ you truly need to stay alive. Meaning? Heart disease prevention should be at the very top of your priority. And when it comes to this, the main thing you should strive for is to keep your blood vessels pliable and unobstructed – so blood can flow freely throughout your circulatory system.

But how? Well, continue reading! The following pointers will show you precisely how to keep your heart healthy, so you prevent heart disease, like atherosclerosis and cardiomyopathy.

#1 – Stay physically active

Living an inactive lifestyle has consistently ranked among the top 5 risk factors for heart disease. Accordingly, one of the most effective lifestyle changes you can make for heart disease prevention’s sake is to stay physically active. There are many reasons why exercise is beneficial for your heart. The first? It’d be that physical activity burns calories. This helps you maintain or reach a healthy weight, which is one of the best things you can do to keep your heart healthy. Second, exercise also exerts positive effects on blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and blood sugar regulation – all critical indicators of your cardiovascular health. And last but most definitely not least… Physical activity also helps keep your arteries and other blood vessels flexible.

But how much exercise should you do? The American Heart Association recommends the bare minimum of exercising 30 minutes daily, 5 days a week. Think that’s too much? Don’t worry. The definition of ‘physical activity’ extends beyond completing laps around the track or lifting in the gym. You can also count everyday activities like climbing stairs, biking, and walking as part of those 30 minutes. Ultimately, the general guideline is this: try to get in some form of movement throughout your day. Especially if you’re still working from home.

#2 – Quit smoking ASAP

If you were to ask a doctor, “What causes heart disease?”, one of the answers that’ll inevitably come up is this: smoking. Research points to a robust connection between smoking and various heart diseases – including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and heart failure – over and over again. Why? Well, you can blame it all on tobacco. And the harmful chemicals (e.g. nicotine) it contains. Once in your bloodstream, these chemicals cause damage to your blood cells, blood vessels, and even to the heart itself. In turn, this increases your risk of atherosclerosis, a disease in which plaque builds up inside your arteries. Which can then create blood clots – and, ultimately, lead to a heart attack or stroke and even death.

So, if you’re a smoker, one of the best heart disease prevention strategies you can use is quitting. It’s never too late to quit. Studies show that the carbon monoxide in your blood drops to normal just 12 hours after your last smoke – allowing more oxygen to vital organs like your heart. Even better: your risk of suffering from a stroke becomes comparable to that of lifetime nonsmokers within 15 years of quitting! Now, what do you say? Is it finally time to put that lighter away?

#3 – Make more heart-healthy dietary choices

One of the most common misconceptions people have about a ‘heart-healthy’ diet is that it needs to be bland. You know, the usual suspects: steamed chicken breast, brown rice, and boiled broccoli. But let’s be honest. How long would you be able to eat this for – before giving in to the temptation of your favorite foods (e.g. glorious smoked meats)? Chances are, not long. Thankfully, though, the key to heart disease prevention is simply moderation. What does that mean? It means that you should reduce your consumption of saturated fats, sodium, and added sugar as much as possible. Instead of eliminating them. But of course, you should also work on increasing your intakes of heart-healthy foods, like whole grains, vegetables, fruits, legumes, and fatty fish.

Prioritize fiber-rich foods, too. Fibre keeps your heart healthy in multiple ways. For one, it can lower cholesterol, which keeps your arteries clear. Fiber can also regulate your blood sugar levels – which is especially crucial since chronic high blood sugar significantly increases your risk of heart attack, strokes, and other heart issues. Another food you can eat more of is also ginseng. That’s because this herb’s active ingredients – ginsenosides – can regulate not only coronary blood flow but also exert beneficial effects on arterial walls. In other words: ginseng can help keep your blood vessels pliable, which ultimately helps reduce the risk of various cardiovascular diseases (including hypertension)!

#4 – Watch your alcohol intake

Do you have the habit of going out for drinks after a day of hard work? Do you then get more drinks after you get home – to unwind in front of the TV? You should probably cut down on your alcohol intake. Research consistently highlights excessive alcohol intake as one of the biggest risk factors of heart disease. According to a 2017 study published in Alcohol Research, too much alcohol could contribute to increased blood pressure and inflammation. And worse still: may also promote the clumping together of platelets, which can, in turn, lead to the formation of dangerous blood clots! Alcohol intake doesn’t just have noticeable effects on these heart disease risk factors, either.

The thing about alcohol is that it contains calories. Quite a bit of it, actually. Every gram of alcohol you drink amounts to 7 calories. Imagine a wild night out. Chances are, you could potentially down hundreds (or even thousands) of calories – without even being aware of it. That’s the perfect recipe for weight gain, another well-known risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you should cut out alcohol completely. All this means is that you should perhaps reserve alcohol for truly special occasions (e.g. getting promoted or achieving a long-term life goal).

#5 – Keep your stress levels under control

Stress should be no stranger to you. However, just because you’re familiar with this anxiety-inducing emotion doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t find ways to de-stress. Stress directly impacts behaviors and factors that increase heart disease risk: high blood pressure, cholesterol levels, smoking, physical activity, and even overeating. You may choose to cope with stress through emotional eating, for example. Or by drinking excessive amounts of alcohol. Accordingly, a heart disease prevention strategy that comes to mind would be stress modulation. You can’t remove stressors from your life – but what you can do is control how you deal with them.

So, common stress-management techniques you can make use of include meditation, deep breathing, and yoga. Better yet: you can even bolster your body’s ability to weather stress from the inside out by supplementing with adaptogens. And one of the most effective adaptogens you can rely on for long-lasting stress relief? It would have to be ginseng. Imagine breathing in the scent of freshly-brewed ginseng. Ah, pure bliss. Now, notice how we’ve already mentioned ginseng twice for heart disease prevention? Yep. That’s your sign for getting yourself some! So, go ahead. Check out our high-quality ginseng products – and lower your risk of cardiovascular disease. Your heart will thank you for it. Promise!