Improve Your Heart Health With These 12 Essential Tips

Senior citizens are often faced with the risk of cardiovascular disease—and the mortality rates are much higher among seniors than they are for younger adults. Heart disease is the number one cause of death in the United States, and many doctors believe that senior living facilities can help to promote a healthy heart in seniors. In this article, however, we will focus on heart health tips for seniors in senior living facilities. Here are 12 tips to keep your heart healthy:

1. Eat a Healthy Diet

Your diet plays a huge role in maintaining your heart health. Restrict red meat, avoid soft drinks and limit the amount of sodium you consume. Also, adjust your cholesterol intake to a low-fat diet with less than 30% of your daily calories from saturated fat. On a daily basis, older people should get approximately 1,000 calories from vegetables and fruits. Furthermore, you should zero out on cholesterol-raising foods that come from meat and dairy.

2. Limit Alcohol Consumption

Although alcohol is known for its heart health benefits in younger people, it can wreak havoc on your heart health if you consume too much of it. In older people, alcohol can increase the risk of clogged arteries by 40%. Also, drinking too much alcohol reduces the amount of exercise your heart needs to work efficiently.

3. Exercise Regularly

Regular physical activity plays an important role in heart health. The key to staying healthy and avoiding a heart attack is to do regular exercise. Start by getting up on a regular basis and moving around for short periods of time, such as going for a short walk or doing some light housework. Increase the amount of time you spend exercising by just 10% each week to help prevent clogged arteries, diabetes, and heart disease later in life.

4. Stay Positive and Avoid Stress

High stress can have a profound effect on your health, so try to minimize it by finding something you enjoy doing and going there regularly as a source of relaxation. Also, avoid negative people and situations that cause you stress. Stress can affect your health in many ways, including your heart. So make sure you avoid stressful situations as much as possible. If there's a situation that is causing you stress or that you find stressful, then try to minimize it or avoid this situation completely. And if something is too overwhelming for you to handle on your own, get help from people who love and care about you.

5. Stay Hydrated

Being dehydrated can put your heart at risk, so make sure you drink plenty of water and avoid too much caffeine. The fluid in your body helps to keep blood flowing freely through your arteries and veins, which means you have increased blood flow.

6. Limit Salt and Sodium Intake

One way to keep your blood pressure low is to reduce your sodium levels, which help regulate and maintain a healthy heart. Read food labels, avoid canned foods and limit the salt in your diet. If a recipe calls for salt, try to cut it in half and then work your way up until you know how much you can handle.

7. Reduce Alcohol Intake

Consuming too much alcohol can cause heart problems. Excess alcohol consumption increases your risk of high blood pressure, which can lead to clogged arteries and a heart attack. Also, if you drink too much alcohol, it can only lead to weight gain and obesity, which in turn can lead to serious health conditions such as high blood pressure, heart disease, and strokes.

8. Add More Fortification to Your Diet

Fortified milk products are a great way to add a little bit of extra vitamin D into your diet. Vitamin D is essential for strong bones, and it also plays a vital role in keeping your heart healthy. Other forms of vitamin D include fortified dairy products and eggs.

9. Quit Smoking

Smoking remains one of the biggest causes of death in the US. If you don't smoke, it's better to stay that way because people who don't smoke are generally healthier than those who do smoke and are less prone to heart disease than those who do smoke regularly.

10. Have Regular Sleeping Habits

If you're a regular sleeper, make sure you get 7 to 8 hours of rest every night. Sleeping too little can cause a host of problems, including heart disease. You should also keep your bedroom at a cool temperature of around 65°F and have an air conditioning unit in your bedroom if possible.

11. Get Regular Checkups

It is essential that seniors get a medical check-up at least once a year. If you don't have a regular health care provider, go to your local Senior Center to find a good doctor. If you don't know what's in your medical chart, explore it whenever there's an opportunity. You never know how much useful information to improve your health there is until you review it.

12. Try an Antioxidant Supplement

Antioxidants help prevent the harmful effects of free radicals due to aging. Some of the most effective antioxidants are vitamin C, vitamin E, beta carotene, selenium, and L-carnitine. Your body naturally produces antioxidants as a part of its normal functioning; however, getting enough antioxidant sources through food or supplements can be beneficial. The right dosage is necessary before supplementing with all these antioxidants. Also, remember that some people may not tolerate certain antioxidants in large doses.

Conclusion

In order to reduce your risk of developing heart disease, you must make a few changes in your lifestyle and habits. Senior living facilities have been found to provide many benefits for their residents; however, most facilities are neither cheap nor ideal for everyone. To make the best decision, you should do research on the senior living facility that you're considering so that you can find out if it would be right for you. Keep in mind that senior living facilities have a wide variety of options to meet a variety of needs, so not every senior living facility offers all of the services that you may want.