How to Keep Your Heart Healthy During Seasonal Changes: Simple Tips That Work

Project: “Heart, You’re Simply Out of This World!”

We have everything we need to lead a healthy lifestyle today, yet we still gravitate towards unhealthy habits. We eat on the go, smoke, drink, and exercise too little. We only wise up when we face health issues, such as heart problems. We’ve compiled a schematic guide to prevention, including “harmless” signs that your heart is under strain and the simplest ways to avoid this.

Why is it important to focus on prevention right now?

During seasonal changes, our bodies experience stress. This period is fraught with sharp fluctuations in atmospheric pressure, temperature, and humidity levels. As a result, we experience increased blood pressure and disruptions in heart rhythm. In short, seasonal changes are a challenging time for the heart. Our “engine” works under additional strain. So, pay close attention to your condition. Here’s a brief checklist of symptoms.

What should concern you?

Pain radiating to the arm: Unpleasant sensations in the upper limbs occur because the heart’s nerve endings are located near the spinal cord, which has many nerves. It may seem like your arm hurts, but the cause is different.
Persistent cough: One of the first signs of cardiovascular problems, including heart failure. In this case, we are not considering respiratory diseases.
Swelling in the legs: (Worsening in the morning and gradually intensifying by the end of the day).
Nausea and loss of appetite: Caused by fluid buildup around the intestines and liver, which interferes with the proper functioning of these organs and impairs digestion.
Increased anxiety: Anxiety and stress seriously affect heart function. Blood pressure increases, leading to tachycardia or a slowdown in heart rate.
Dizziness, loss of consciousness, shortness of breath: (During physical exertion and at rest).
Fatigue: (When climbing stairs and other minor physical activities).

If a person experiences fear or anger, not only does their nervous system suffer, but their heart does too. The hormone adrenaline causes the heart to beat faster, while blood vessels constrict. As a result, blood pressure rises, and the heart muscle wears out.

Prevention: Music and Helping Loved Ones Improve Health

What kind of prevention do we need? In reality, there’s nothing complicated. You need to train yourself to do things that everyone knows about. But do they? Overall, you need:

Increased physical activity: A healthy heart benefits from exercise, just like all other muscles in the body. If you’re not very athletic, try brisk walking. It’s important to maintain your maximum training heart rate.
Balance between work and rest: Without this balance, a person can eventually experience burnout. This isn’t a supposition but a scientific fact. Scientists from Zurich conducted a study and even created a model. They vividly showed how quickly a person can fall into depression if they don’t separate their professional and personal lives. It’s simply necessary to rest fully and detach from work.
Giving up harmful habits: What happens to the heart when a person smokes a cigarette? The number of biologically active substances sharply increases. We’re talking about corticosteroids, as well as adrenaline and norepinephrine. As a result, the heart muscle works in an accelerated mode. The heart then enlarges, blood pressure rises, and the speed of myocardial contractions increases.

A smoker’s heart contracts 12,000 to 15,000 times more. That is, it wears out faster. But with this kind of wear-and-tear work, the heart doesn’t receive enough oxygen. It can be said to “suffocate” from the lack of it and the intense contractions.

After quitting smoking, the heart recovers. Admittedly, only over several years. But improvements are felt immediately. This is confirmed by Diana Denisova, the chief research officer at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Medical Sciences:

“The walls of the blood vessels and the myocardium strengthen, the tone of the smooth muscles normalizes. The patency of veins and arteries improves. Blood pressure and heart rhythm indicators return to normal. Pathological narrowing of the vascular lumens is eliminated, the heart’s oxygen supply is optimized. The risk of a heart attack decreases.”

Limiting table salt: What happens to the body when we eat too much salty food? In short, our kidneys retain more water than usual. Because of this, more blood begins to flow through the veins and arteries. The vessels expand – pressure rises. Accordingly, if we constantly expand the vessels with salt, we ourselves provoke hypertension.
Relaxing music: There’s even a concept called music therapy. “When people are at rest and hear music, their heartbeat instantly increases compared to what it was just a minute ago,” cardiologists assert. The heart rate increases or decreases depending on the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. The first “accelerates” the rhythm, the second slows it down.

Music “trains” the interaction of systems and their influence on the work of the heart muscle. This, in turn, is beneficial to all participants in the “training.” Along with changes in heart rhythm, a person’s mood and well-being change, which many people already know well.

Support from loved ones: Scientists from the University of Pittsburgh (USA) have found that helping other people has a beneficial effect on our own brain. Specifically, on those areas responsible for the reaction to stress and reward. By supporting someone or doing even the smallest good deed, our “parental” functions are activated. Additionally, the feeling of stress is inhibited.
Vitamin and mineral complex as advised by a doctor: It is believed that the heart needs potassium and magnesium. But don’t rely on the advice of friends or pharmacists. Visit a doctor. Until you take the appropriate tests, you won’t know which microelements you lack and which you have in excess. An overdose of both potassium and magnesium is quite dangerous.
Still, include potassium and magnesium in your diet: Microelements are found in seafood, potatoes, nuts, bananas, dried apricots, and dark chocolate. It’s hard to get an excess of these elements from food. For example, the daily norm of magnesium is in 6 bananas. It’s unlikely that anyone can eat that many fruits in a day.

There are many products rich in potassium and magnesium. These include legumes, seaweed, beans, buckwheat, cashews, mustard, lean meat (turkey, rabbit, beef, chicken). No less useful are potatoes, bananas, peaches, strawberries, raspberries, kiwi, spinach, apples, carrots, and champignon mushrooms.

Interesting Facts

Happiness, lack of stress, exercise, and a healthy diet keep the heart healthy.
Happiness and laughter affect heart function. Laughter can accelerate blood flow through the veins by 20% because it relaxes the walls of blood vessels.

For more information, visit American Heart Association.