Ten best ways to avoid heart attack

Heart is one of the important organs in human body.  It brings blood through arteries to heart and then pumps it back to the rest of the body.  When there is some block to this process, heart attack occurs.  A hard substance called plaque can build up in walls of the coronary arteries.  A plaque is made up of cholesterol and other cells.

Another important reason for heart attack is stress and depression.  When the person is under severe stress, the blood flowing to the heart couldn’t flow properly and the arteries are believed to shrink thereby depriving sufficient blood to heart.  Stress added with blocks made up of cholesterol and other cells will ultimately lead to heart attack. 

Both my paternal and maternal grandfathers died of heart attack.  My maternal grandfather died at the age of 52 and paternal grandfather died at 89.  Both of them are vegetarian and were eating very balanced diet and didn’t smoke or drink any alcohol.  If I analyze what caused heart attack, the only conclusion I could infer is when they died they had high stress on thinking something.  The stress was not just for few minutes or hours.  It was continuous and I believe this made their arteries weak and thereby suddenly the blood was unable to go to heart. It has also scientifically proved that stress and tension are the biggest contributor for heart attack.

Heart attacks kills millions of people all over the world and is much rampant among South Asians and Middle East people.  The food habit and social living along with mental balance will affect the functioning of heart.  When so many millions of people die of heart attack, it is very important to know how to avoid heart attack to us and our family and friends.

1.   Lead a stress and tension free life

This is the most important aspect to follow to avoid heart attack.  It is how we take a particular thing depends.  So take everything lightly and this will make a sea change in our healthy living.

2.   Regular Exercise, games and workout

Keep your body fit.  Burn all the unwanted cells, cholesterol, calories and fat in our body.  This will help the arteries to be strong enough without any blocks so that there is no any obstruction in the flow of blood to and from heart.  Don’t over do any workouts.  Light workouts are the best for body.  Try to do daily 30 to 45 minutes or at least 4 days in a week.

3.   Eat lot of fruits and vegetables

This will help to get lot of vitamins and water into your body.  This will prevent clotting in the arteries.

4.   Lower your bad cholesterol

Avoid eating junk foods like French fries, burgers and pizzas.  If not able to totally avoid at least reduce junk foods significantly.  This will reduce the bad cholesterol and fat in your body.  These are the substances that clog your arteries in the form of plaque and finally kill you.

5.   Reduce your blood pressure

Any blood pressure above 140/90 should be considered seriously and proper medical treatment has to be taken.  The blood in the arteries finds it harder to reach your heart.  Blood pressure has two readings systolic and diastolic.  The systolic refers to when you do any body movements and diastolic is at when your heart is in rest.  Eat less salt and fat foods with regular exercise will help to reduce the blood pressure.

6.   Avoid oily food

Though South Asians eat low fat food they have very high rate of heart attack.  It is because their food contains lot of oil.  Try to avoid oil food and incase want to have some oil food, can use sun flower oil and extra refined virgin olive oil.  Both of them have low cholesterol and have higher content of good fat like Omega 3.

7.   Avoid smoking and alcoholic drinks

Research has proved smoking and drinking more than normal alcohol will increase the chance for heart attack.  Smoking can damage the cells in the arteries, which take the blood to the heart.  It is better to avoid smoking and reduce the alcoholic drinks.

8.   Eat fish and Omega 3 rich food

Japanese eat lot of fish and it is one of their staple foods.  It has been scientifically proved that Japanese living in one island that eats fish normally live more than 90 years in average.  As a country Japan has one of the highest life expectancy and have lowest heart attacks.  Eating fish regularly will increase the good fat in your body and help the cells and blood to be fluid and easily moves to heart.

9.   Regular doctor check up, screening and aspirin

Doctor check up and screening test at least once in a year will help to know the medical conditions and take preventive action even before heart attack symptoms strikes you.  In case of any heart uncomfort, take aspirin before immediately going to doctor.  Aspirin is a blood thinner and very useful in preventing heart attack.

10.    Moderate intake of red wine

French eat lot of fat and junk related food, but have one of the lowest heart attack rates in the world.  It is because they drink lot of red wine.  Red wine has an antioxidant called resveratrol that prevents heart disease.  But as such higher alcohol intake is harmful to body, so red wine in moderation will help heart attack. 

Attitude is the key for happiness

Attitude reflects from thoughts and when thoughts are positive, attitude towards a particular thing will also be positive.  When you are stressed, specific hormones are grown and circulated in the body, when they are continuously produced and spread out, there is a serious problem in your attitude and happiness. 

What you seed is what you ripe is a famous saying.  Bill Meyer said “ If you plant crab apples, don’t count on harvesting Golden delicious”.   If your mind is continuously fed with positive thought the attitude also tends to become positive.  It is vital to be positively motivated for continuous happiness in your life.  The Prime Minister of England Winston Churchill felt attitude would decide the journey of a person that is why he told, “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference”.

Attitude is everything and what one perceives of him.  You could have heard about Nick Vujicic an inspirational speaker who was born with no arms and no legs.  Many would have not thought of living, but this was a challenge to triumph.   Nick realized it is what he perceived of this deficiency that matters and decided to change his course of life.  He had a purpose.  Now, people gather motivation and strength from Nick to tap into their own worth.  People will learn how to overcome their negative and deficiencies, persevere under any adverse circumstances and attain the heights of their ambition.

Attitude will decide your altitude is a famous saying.  What you think will help you to behave,  if you think about a particular thing positively you will behave positively anything related to it.  In your subconscious mind everything positive related to that event or activity will be recorded positively.  So your behavior will be positive and all your communication with other people will be positive.  The thoughts create waves and all the waves circling will be positive.  Exactly opposite will happen when you start to think or feed negativity. 

If attitude is so important then why can’t anyone be always with positive attitude.  Here is where the problem starts, people have different types of situations and circumstances where they tend to go against the positive attitude.  They have to learn to come out of the stress and the negative thoughts and learn to be positive always.  Even though there are some temporary set backs, a person with positive attitude will eventually win his life and will serve the purpose for him and the society. 

How to cultivate positive attitude always in your thoughts. 

1.   There is no one without failures and negatives in life.  In this time, try to refocus your thought to something which is positive and interesting to you.  If you like to play badminton or tennis, just go and play.  This will help to come out from depression and negative thoughts.

2.   Try to always be smiling and with happy face.  This will make others happy and will attract you to them.  This will subconsciously help you to be happy and positive.

3.   Think only positively though it is totally impossible.  Many times something miraculously will help you to achieve your target.  Your positive mind will attract similar waves outside in the universe and that will help you to get what you thought impossible.  This is not just I am saying, this has happened to many and one day may happen to you.

4.   Try to be in the middle of positive attitude folks than who are always negative.  When everyone around you is in happy and positive mood, it will make you to be positive.

5.   Try to do meditation or focus your mind on a particular object or event, so that your body is in relaxed state.  This will help to think concisely and clearly that will be mostly positive.

6.   Try to do regular exercise and balanced diet.  In long run, what you eat and how your body reacts to that food will determine your thoughts also.  Eating junk food continuously will increase your fat level and in long run will affect your mind and body.

7.   Keep a mentor or a role model as source of energy.  He may be in any field, when you think of him you will get a boost or an extra energy. This will give a positive attitude to attain what we are planning for.

8.   Enjoy and tap your back when you achieve something.  This will help to be positive and happier. 

The ten best stress relievers

In today’s fast and busy world, people are competing heavily for getting higher income and live a busy sociable life.  This in turn creates lot of stress and tension among the people of all ages.   This if not taken care of will lead to disastrous outcome in long run with high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke.

Are you suffering from stress, it not only spoils that moment but it is slow killer in creating acute diseases such as high blood pressure and heart dysfunction.  The sooner and better way you find to handle stress and tension will free your mind and body both in short and long terms.

There are many ways to relieve your tension, but you can follow anyone that suits your comfort and fits your time availability. The main thing is persistence and sustainability what you do.  Just doing it for few days, only when you are suffering from stress wouldn’t create lost long effect.  First learn the technique and make it a routine habit in your daily life and you will be surprised to see that your stress is controlled slowly.

1.              Breathing exercise

The way normal adult breath is said to be incorrect by many health consultants.  The breathing should start from nose and go up to stomach and breath out.  Adults only breathe out 25 to 50 percent of the air from lungs.  If you see small babies they breathe deeply taking and pushing out almost 100 percent of the air.  Taking deep breath increase your oxygen input more and keeps your cells in the blood more active and the blood circulation is improved.  This helps the brain to get more oxygen and reduces the tension and stress that are normally caused by lack of sufficient cells in the brain.

2.              Music

Hearing quiet music releases the stress in many people.  Music has shown numerous health benefits to lot of people not only relieving stress and tension but also curing mind related disease.  While you hear to calm music, your brain becomes more concentrated and relaxed and thereby increases your blood circulation in the brain.  Music can also change the state of mind from negative to positive state, which helps to keep the depression and anxiety at lower level.

3.              Meditation

When you meditate your brain enters from hyperactive state to alpha state where it calms the mind from all depressions and anxiety.  Meditation involves sitting in a relaxed position and concentration on a particular object or sound, like ‘Om’.  When meditation is done daily with proper breathing control, it is proved to give maximum benefit for stress and many other mind related disease and also improves the blood pressure and strengthens the heart and brain functions.

4.              Exercise

Routine exercise improves the blood circulation and body to be in tune with mind.  It has been proved that 45 minutes exercise done for 4 to 5 days in a week keeps your body fit and also improves the mind to focus and concentrate better.  More oxygen enters the body while do exercise and this helps the brain to produce more cells and helps to reduce the stress and tension.

5.              Laughter

This is another easy technique to follow to release the stress for anyone.  You can see some comedy movie clips or talk with someone who makes you to laugh and make forget the worries and problems you have.  Even you can think of something in the past, which makes you to laugh, so that your brain is able to change its state of mind to positive from depression.

6.              Yoga

This is another form of exercise where meditation is combined to give maximum benefit for stress and depression.  You can concentrate your mind on particular object or sound and stretch your body in different way, so that both mind and body are relaxed.  It is better to have a teacher at the initial stages of practicing yoga as doing something wrong may give adverse effects.

7.              Acupuncture

In some cases, acupuncture and giving pressure in some points of the body has shown improvement in relieving stress and tension.  It increases the blood circulation and thus helps to improve the brain waves and reduces the depressive mood and calms the brain.

8.              Sex

It helps to distract your mind from thinking something that is negative and attracts toward something more positive.  Additionally body is able to burn more calories during sex, same as during doing exercise.  This is one of the best ways to reduce the stress and tension. 

9.              Green tea

It has been proved drinking green tea reduces the stress and tension.  Drinking coffee and tea will increase your caffeine intake and this will eventually increase the stress whereas green tea has less caffeine level and its antioxidant chemicals are best suited to reduce the stress.  It also helps to reduce your weight in long run.

10.           Balanced diet

What you eat will determine your mood and actions.  When you continuously eat fatty and junk food, the blood circulation and body cells are clogged in with unwanted fats.  This will reduce the blood going to brain and thereby increases your chance of high stress and tension.  Eat less fat foods like whole grains, green vegetables, berries and fruits that are easily digestible. 

These are only some of the ways in that you can reduce your stress and tension.  There are many more techniques, methods and foods that can reduce your stress and tension.  You don’t need to follow everyone, just select one or few and practice and see the effect.  If it suits continue doing and make it a habit so that your stress and tension are controlled in long run.