5 easy steps to pump up your heart !

Want to keep your heart healthy? Then you need to know the following.

Holly Andersen, director of education and outreach at the Ronald O. Perelman Heart Institute of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital has offered some easy steps to improve heart health and overall well-being throughout the year.

Step 1: Know your numbers. Your blood pressure, cholesterol and triglyceride levels are the most important numbers you will need to know before you begin on the path to good heart health.

Step 2: Start walking. Exercise is the fountain of youth. A simple 20- to 30-minute walk a few days a week can actually reduce the risk of premature death by more than 50 percent.

Step 3: Laugh out loud. Laughter really is the best medicine. Just 15 minutes of laughter is about equivalent to 30 minutes of aerobic exercise with respect to our cardiovascular health. Laughter has also been linked to the healthy function of blood vessels, an increase of the brain hormones that improve mood, and reduction of pain and anxiety.

Step 4: Focus on your waistline, not your weight. Your waistline is a better measurement of your overall health than your weight because the amount of fat around your waistline is directly linked to high blood pressure and high cholesterol and can place you at increased risk for diabetes.

Step 5: Get a good night's sleep. Sleep is one of the most undervalued elements of our daily routines, but it is absolutely vital to good health. Lack of sleep increases your blood pressure, induces stress, increases your appetite and slows down your metabolism, dampens your mood and decreases your cognition.

5 Ways to Energize Your Life - Part 2

Activate your day

Even though you may feel pooped after your workout, moderate exercise can actually give you energy. "As you exercise, you use blood glucose," Cochran explains. Your body then pulls glycogen (the stored form of carbohydrate in the liver and muscles) into your bloodstream, which can ultimately make you feelmore energized as your blood glucose level rises. To rev up your daily routine, Cochran recommends revving pacing when you're talking on the phone and taking the stairs at every opportunity.

Get an hour's more sleep

To function at your best, the National Sleep Foundation (NSF) recommends at least eight hours of sleep a night for adults. But according to a recent NSF poll, on average, adults sleep just under seven hours nightly during the work week.

With a chronic sleep deficit, it may take you long to execute low-level mental chores such as figuring the tip on your lunch check. And say goodnight to multitasking and making sound judgment calls — especially in crisis situations. All told, "anything that's not routine is difficult to do if you're tired," says Andrew A. Monjan, PhD, MPH, chief of the neurobiology of aging branch of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD.

Nix caffeine

Granted, caffeine can be a quick picker-upper, because it stimulates brain cells. But if you have trouble getting to sleep at night, "avoid caffeine after lunch," advises Sonia Ancoli-Israel, PhD, director of the sleep disorders clinic at the Veterans Affairs-San Diego Health Care System. Besides obvious sources of caffeine — coffee (103 mg caffeine/6 oz cup), tea (36 mg/6 oz cup) and cola beverages such as Diet Coke (46.5 mg/12 oz) — take stock of your diet's hidden caffeine sources, such as chocolate or coffee-flavored foods. Even some decaffeinate coffee has been found to contain small amounts of caffeine.

Concluded

Article By: Sandra Agababian