When it comes to keeping your heart in shape, most of what we write below won’t surprise you. The same methods that keep your skin healthy, your brain sharp, your limbs limber, and your muscles strong are exactly what you need to keep your arteries clear, your heart pumping, and your blood pressure in check.
- Eat plants. This includes nuts—especially walnuts—to decrease artery inflammation.
- Exercise and lift weights.
- Increase your soluble fiber.
- Decrease your salt intake.
- Get plenty of rest and downtime.
- Quit smoking. Not too much more needs to be said here.
What you may not know, however, is that what is missing from the above “To Do” list is love. While how we exercise, eat, and sleep, have a powerful impact on our heart health, an increasing number of studies shows that our health is profoundly interwoven with how we live and connect with others. It doesn’t have to be—and usually isn’t—romantic love that has the most striking effects. It’s the kind connection we all crave, the ability to See and be Seen, that makes an immeasurable difference.
This February, not only do we challenge you to eat your vegetables, drink your water, and get moving, we challenge you to try incorporating a little more love into your life.
- Allow yourself to connect with a stranger. Open a door. Smile.
- Make eye contact. Eyes are the “windows of the soul”, after all. Let the world see yours.
- Unplug. Step away from technology (after you read this blog, of course) and get outside with a friend as much as you can. The Vitamin D, fresh air, and companionship will do wonders for your stress levels.
- Strengthen your Vagus Nerve with random acts of kindness. Studies have shown that by increasing the amounts of active love (kindness), we can improve the function of the vagus nerve, the conduit that connects your brain to your heart.
- Don’t take your relationship for granted. Whether it’s a marriage, a friendship, a sisterhood, etc., it survives on “micro-moments of positive resonance”. Keep building, and you’ll keep benefitting.
- Send Valentines. Reminding the people in your life how you feel about them not only makes them feel appreciated, but it also calls to mind your many blessings.
Heart and vascular health is something Family Health Care of Siouxland physicians take very seriously. And when you have tools available to assess, diagnose, thwart, and heal vascular disease, you use them. If you are ready to take your heart and vascular health seriously, consider getting a baseline at our Imaging Center. Our Vascular Screening methods are state of the art, non-invasive, effective, and affordable.