The minute the person crosses the gateway into the 40s, the risk for developing heart disease becomes entirely too real. Heart disease is a term covering any disorder of the heart, and its causes are also pretty natural to understand.
When the core is a pump, it circulates the blood throughout your body in the form of oxygen and nutrients as it needs an energy supply to work, but if the heart stops getting the fuel it needs, the heart cells stop working which resulted in heart disease.
In Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States, heart disease is the leading cause of death. One in every three deaths in the united states occurs as a result of heart disease.
There is various type of heart disease like Arrhythmia, myocardial infarction, High pressure, mitral regurgitation, heart failure, etc., but the most common heart disease which is found in both men and women is coronary artery disease which can lead to a heart attack.
The general symptoms of this disease are chest pain, fast breathing, sweating, high levels of fatigue or breathlessness, and clubbed fingernails.
However, you are never too young or too old to take care of your heart health, and indeed, age 40, as we said is a gateway when the risk of many health conditions increases. It is easy to put the health aside from age 40 as you might have demanding jobs, aging parents, growing children’s, or in most cases all of the above.
But Forty is a good time to evaluate your wellbeing, take a deep breath, and plan for the long run. Although heart disease, in most cases, is nearly always preventable, it is remarkable that it causes so much pain both emotionally and physically to the person and its family.
If a heart disease is there right from the point of birth, then, it can’t be prevented. But if you are getting caught with it recently, then we are here to tell you that it can be prevented. Remember, it will take time to avoid such a high-risk disease at low risk.
But if you care about your health and the wellbeing of your family, you will do everything to maintain and build a healthy heart. So, make these small changes to your daily routine and get your heart disease prevented from our list of 16 ways to prevent heart disease after 40.
1. Liquidate Yourself
The best way to prevent heart disease could have to do with liquidating yourself. Research has found that the person who drank more than five 8 ounce glasses of water a day can drop your risk of developing heart disease to half while comparing it with the person who drank less than two.
It is because water works well when it comes to improving blood flow and managing the proper hydration in the body. So, buy yourself a bottle of stainless steel and keep it with you all day.
2. If you smoke, stop.
You have heard it many times, but it kept on repeating. It is the first step towards all the heart problems. And indeed, age 40 should include a body checkup for smokers. If you are a smoker, it is time to take it seriously by quitting it right now.
Studies have found that not smoking is the number one way to keep your heart healthy and the best way to prevent heart disease. However, stop smoking cigarettes is not easy, but believe us, within two years, the threat of heart attack will decrease to that level of a person who has never smoked.
3. Eat Dark Chocolate every day:
Believe us; much research has found that eating dark chocolate is the best way to prevent heart disease. Due to chemicals in chocolate full of heart-healthy called flavonoids, it helps to keep heart arteries flexible while acting as an antioxidant for heart disease.
So make sure you get a small amount of it every day as it also prevents bad cholesterol. Go for 1 to 2 ounces, but stay away from milk chocolate as it is full of fat which tends to raise cholesterol.
4. Explore your family history
During your fifth decade, it’s time to shake down your family tree to learn about your genetics because it increases your risk for heart disease. Moreover, chances are high if the relative is a parent or sibling.
This means it’s time to focus on the family history and focus on all the risk factors one can control by eating healthier, not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight, and let your doctor know as you are in need to be serious about it.
5. Maintain a healthy weight
In your 40s, you may notice your metabolism to slow down. When it comes to the heart, being overweight isn’t better as that increases your chances of heart disease, including high diabetes, high, and high blood pressure.
So maintaining a healthy weight is crucial at this moment, and one of the best ways to maintain it is by calculating body mass index (BMI). It will help you know whether you have a healthy or unhealthy percentage of fat. Ideally, a BMI between 18.5 to 24.9 is considered as good.
6. Limit drinking alcohols:
Intake of one or two alcohol drinks per day has shown to help with heart health, raise good cholesterol, prevent dangerous blood clots, and even help with brain functioning. The key here is to limit drinking alcohol.
As metabolism is different for women than men, women should limit their intake to up to one drink, while men should limit their drink to up to two drinks a day. However, continuous taking that smaller amount of alcohol or any more than couples of drinks a day can significantly raise your risk of developing heart disease.
7. Adopt a Dog:
Adopting a dog may also is the best way to prevent heart disease. It is rightly said the dog is the heart’s best friend. It helps to lower blood pressure, lower triglyceride levels, and cholesterol than the people who don’t have dogs.
However, adopting a dog may be hectic for the first few months as it takes time to get settled in, But its long term effect of companionship and unconditional love will help to calm your heart and reduce the risk of a heart attack.
8. Manage Cholesterol level:
Managing the cholesterol level is one of the best ways to prevent heart disease after 40. Since too much cholesterol in your blood contributes to building up in the arteries, it becomes a huge risk factor for heart disease.
So our recommendation is to keep your overall cholesterol level below 200 mg per deciliter. The primary goal is to keep LDL cholesterol level less than 100, while HDL cholesterol to 60 or more to lower the risk of heart disease.
9. Manage Stress:
Having stress after 40 with all that family responsibility on the shoulders is normal. But too much stress and depression can lead to an increase in the risk of heart disease by four times. The stress acts as a silent killer for the heart as it builds up every day, increases the blood pressure, and takes the heart rate to unhealthy levels.
So limiting the stress is highly evitable. You can take the time for meditation, chill out with friends or family, have fun, develop new hobbies that you enjoy doing, or learning some stress management tactics. It will not only benefits your body or heart but also develops the quality of life.
10. Have Enough Sleep:
Lack of sleep has been shown in recent years that can do more and more problems to the body than leave you yawning throughout the day. For good health and a strong heart, experts recommend having a quality sleep of 6 to 8 hours for preventing heart disease after 40.
Make sleep your priority in life by tightening its schedule. Keep your bedroom dark, cool, and quiet and try to go for the sleep an hour before than usual. However, if you are facing problems with not having enough sleep, then taking doctor recommendation is important.
11. Have Heart Healthy Diet:
After 40, if heart health hasn’t been a priority, don’t worry. Having a heart-healthy diet can help you strengthen your heart and prevent heart disease. However, this simple way can be hard for individuals that are used to the unhealthy diet by shoving processed foods.
For a healthy heart keep an aim to keep trans fat like bakery products, deep-fried fast food, chips, packaged snack foods, soft drinks, fresh juice, candy, and portions of margarine out of your diet altogether. Part of having a heart-healthy diet is to eat fish two to three times a week as it helps to decrease your risk of heart disease.
12. Go nuts:
Just 1.5 ouches of nuts a day can reduce the risk of heart disease to a great level. As nuts are very healthy and filled with fiber, vitamins, and minerals, for the after 40 age person, they will help them to lower the cholesterol level by keeping the heart-healthy.
A study has found that the person who consumed just 1.5 ounces of nuts regularly has slashed their risk of heart disease by 20%. It is the simplest and the best way to prevent heart disease.
13. Eat banana and orange every day:
After the 40s, filling up on the daily recommendation of 3,500 mg potassium a day has helped to keep the blood pressure low and the heart more healthy. As bananas and oranges have a high amount of vitamin c and potassium in them, they will help to reduce the risk of heart disease.
If you are tired of banana and orange, you can also look forward to the Strawberries, broccoli, or a chopped red bell pepper as they will allow you to get the daily recommendation of potassium.
14. Don’t ignore the warning signs
After the 40s, it is time to get savvy about the symptoms. You might already have heart disease and may not know if you haven’t been keeping up with the preventions.
Not everyone experiences sudden numbness. You might have chest pain or shortness of breath, which is related to an early sign that you have heart disease. So, going to the doctor for a full assessment is the best way of preventing heart disease.
15. Keep a record of snoring:
Snoring isn’t just for annoying your partner. It may be a sign of sleep apnea, a condition in which your breathing stops down while you sleep for around hundreds of times by making blood pressure levels rise. It also contributes to heart disease and stroke. So, if you hear yourself snoring or getting complaints from the partner about your late-night snoring, make an appointment with your doctor.
16. Exercise regularly:
Regular exercise surely will prevent you from heart disease. It helps to strengthen your heart, provides twice the reduction in body mass, reduction in blood pressure, and cholesterol levels. For regular exercise, you didn’t need to get so hard. You can either have 30 minutes workout, cycling for 20 minutes, or do a combination of yoga and exercise for most days of the week.