Healthy heart matters

Summers are officially here! And most of us, hopefully, have been taking adequate precautions to stay hydrated.
Healthy heart matters

Summers are officially here! And most of us, hopefully, have been taking adequate precautions to stay hydrated. But not many of us would know that heat can be harmful to our heart as well. While heart health has a direct connection with your sedentary lifestyle and stress, it also has a lot to do with the heatwave. We all know that the heart is a vital organ that helps in blood circulation throughout the body along with managing blood pressure levels. Increased pressure on the heart may affect our daily productivity and performance. While there is a lot that you can do to keep your heart health in check, here are a few basic tips to save your heart from the heat outside.

Hydration: We must drink enough water to enhance blood circulation and for the heart to function well. Lack of water may thicken blood, which can constrict blood vessels and lead to the increase in the risk of a heart attack. Do not get confused between hunger and thirst signals. At times, when we are thirsty, we end up having a meal to curb that hunger pang. Let’s make sure that the next time you feel hungry, you drink a glass full of water and observe how you feel for 10 to 15 minutes. If your hunger subsides, that means it was a thirst signal. Try to drink lemon water, fennel water, infused water, and coconut water to stay
hydrated during summer.

Early dinner: Have an early dinner by sunset or before 7pm so that there is a long gap between your sleep and dinner. This helps in shutting down digestion at night. When we sleep, our body utilises all the energy for healing purposes. This helps reduce overall inflammation not just from the heart but also in your entire body. In addition, you sleep better when digestion is stopped because you may not sleep well with a full stomach. Lack of sleep can increase the risk of cardiac issues.

Maintain the same eating cycle: It is very important that you fix a time for your meals and follow the same timings for at least six days a week. If our meal timings change, we put the body under stress and when we eat under stress, it will harm the heart.

Activity: I have been talking about the benefits of being active, how movement helps in improving blood circulation, how feel-good hormones work on relaxing the mind and body including the heart and in managing stress, blood pressure, and heart issues. Try to add an hour of workout at least four days a week. Move around throughout the day to achieve eight to 10 thousand steps to improve blood circulation and heart health.

Meditation: practise 10 minutes of meditation to take out some time for yourself because when we meditate, we activate the rest-and-digest mode of the body, which suppresses stress. This ultimately lowers our blood pressure and reduces pressure from the heart preventing any cardiac issues.

Deepika rathod
Chief Nutrition Officer, Luke Coutinho Holistic Healing Systems.
The writer is a clinical nutritionist with a focus on healthy lifestyle choices.

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