30 Ways to Reduce Your Risk of Heart Disease and Stroke

Heart disease is something that unfortunately runs in my family.  Until recently, I really never thought about the implications of what that means.  If you have been reading this blog for the last few weeks, then you know that getting healthy has become a priority of mine.

There are always the obvious ways of getting healthy and reducing the risk of the above-mentioned items.  Eating right, exercise… that’s pretty standard.  Well, here are several other ways to take preventative measures against health-related disease.  For example:

2. Eat a piece of dark chocolate several times a week. Believe it or not, several small studies suggest dark chocolate could be good for your heart! The beneficial effects are likely due to chemicals in chocolate called flavonoids, which help arteries stay flexible. Other properties of the sweet stuff seem to make arteries less likely to clot and prevent the “bad” cholesterol, LDL, from oxidizing, making it less likely to form plaque. Dark chocolate is also rich in magnesium and fiber. But steer clear of milk chocolate, which is high in butterfat and thus tends to raise cholesterol.

5. Tape-record yourself at night. If you hear yourself snoring (or if your sleeping partner has been kicking you a lot), make an appointment with your doctor. You may have sleep apnea, a condition in which your breathing stops hundreds of times throughout the night. It can lead to high blood pressure and other medical problems, and even increase your risk for heart attack and stroke.

6. Go to bed an hour earlier tonight. A Harvard study of 70,000 women found that those who got less than seven hours of sleep had a slightly higher risk of heart disease. Researchers suspect lack of sleep increases stress hormones, raises blood pressure, and affects blood sugar levels. Keep your overall sleeping time to no more than nine hours, however. The same study found women sleeping nine or more hours had a slightly increased risk of heart disease.

Several other (27, in fact) ways are listed, and all of them seem easy enough.  The point they make in the article is that these are small changes, but if implemented in your life, they can help you avoid these life-threatening diseases.

Read the article.