5 ways to care for your heart

More than one New Zealander dies from heart disease every 90 minutes, and many of these deaths are preventable.

This week is the Heart Foundation’s annual appeal, where it asks Kiwis to think about their heart health. Here are some ways to care for your heart – and your whole body – so you can stay healthy now and later in life.

1. Focus on being healthy overall

If you’re young and generally healthy, you probably don’t need to worry about heart disease specifically. Instead, focus on looking after your body in general, and developing good habits to set you up for a healthy heart later in life.

You generally won’t need to have a heart check until age 55 for European women and 45 for Maori, Pacific or South Asian women. Your GP will be able to give you more specific advice based on your family history and general health.

2. Don’t smoke

You’ve heard it before, but it’s worth repeating. If you still smoke, quitting is one of the best things you can do for your health. Women who smoke cigarettes are three times as likely to have a heart attack as women who don’t smoke.

The good news is that much of the damage is reversible. Within three months of stopping smoking you’ll have better circulation and be able to breathe more easily. Within fifteen years of stopping smoking, your risk of having a heart attack will be reduced to the level of someone who has never smoked. The sooner you kick the habit, the sooner your heart health will improve.

3. Be active

These days, sitting in front of a computer or other electronic device for most of the day has become the norm. Moving your body regularly is one of the best things you can do for your health, but almost half of adults aren’t physically active for more than the recommended minimum of 30 minutes each day.

Try getting up and going for a short walk around your office every hour, and heading outside for a brisk walk around the block at lunchtime. And on the days you don’t go to the gym or head to your yoga class, ‘active rest’ is the way to go – that’s doing light activity such as gardening, stretching or housework, rather than slumping on the couch.

4. Be sensible with fat

Fat isn’t evil, but it’s important not to go overboard with it. Too much saturated fat in particular has been linked to heart disease. That doesn’t mean you should cut it out of your diet altogether, but it’s recommended to keep saturated fat at less than 10 per cent of your total diet (that’s about 24 grams a day for an average person).

The best way to get the balance right is to choose foods that have more unsaturated than saturated fat, such as nuts, seeds, avocado, olives, oily fish and plant oils. Remember, most people in Western countries don’t need to worry about not getting enough fat.

5. Eat your greens

Fruit and vegetables are packed with good stuff that your body needs to function well, so you should aim to eat a lot of them. Think of fruit and vegetables as an essential part of your meals, and find ways to add more of them to your diet.

Try having a side salad with dinner, having fruit, carrot sticks or snow peas as a snack, or roasting a big batch of veggies in the weekend to add to your lunches throughout the week. The different colours of fruit and vegetables signal different nutrients – so aim to have a variety of colours each day.

The Heart Foundation’s annual appeal runs until February 15. Funds raised from the appeal will support the organisation in its work to halt premature deaths from heart disease and stop the next generation of New Zealanders from developing heart disease. Keep an eye out for volunteers collecting money for the cause on Friday February 13 and Saturday February 14, or donate online.