Although some people are under the impression that having a healthy heart is simply a matter of genetics, that’s not true; yes, things like family history, sex and age do play a large part in whether or not you will get heart disease, but they’re not the only things involved. There are plenty of risk factors that you do have control over, and there are several things you can do to keep your heart healthy and prevent heart disease – and the best part is that you don’t have to take medication in order to achieve this goal.

1. Avoid Tobacco

One major risk factor for developing heart disease is smoking cigarettes or using tobacco. Tobacco contains chemicals that can hurt the blood vessels in your heart. This damage to the blood vessels causes the arteries in your heart to get narrower, resulting in a medical condition known as atherosclerosis. Since the arteries aren’t as wide as they used to be, they leave you more susceptible to clogged arteries, which in turn results in heart attacks. It’s not just cigarettes that cause this kind of damage – any type of tobacco at all can do the trick, from smokeless tobacco to exposure to secondhand smoke. If you are a woman over the age of 35 who takes birth control pills, you should be especially careful with tobacco as this combination of factors leaves people in this group particularly susceptible to heart attacks and strokes. If you stop smoking or using tobacco, within a period of time as short as one year you will see your risk of heart disease drop dramatically.

2. Exercise!

Another risk factor for developing heart disease is not getting enough exercise. By adding in just 30 minutes of exercise per day, you can make your heart healthier. Doing exercise will help you control your weight, and it will also cut down on your chances of developing risk factors such as diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure. If you can’t do 30 minute of exercise a day, don’t stop doing exercise altogether – whatever you can manage is helpful no matter how short it is.

3. Better Dieting

A third way to reduce your risk of developing heart disease is to eat a heart-healthy diet. One special diet that is designed to do just this is the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet. This is a low-fat, low-cholesterol and low-salt diet that encourages you to eat lots of fruits and vegetables. Another major risk factor that a diet can take care of is being overweight. Being overweight can lead to a multitude of other conditions that cause heart disease. One quick way to determine if you are overweight is to measure your waist. If you are a male with a waist measurement of more than 40 inches or a female with a waist measurement of over 35 inches, then you are probably overweight.

4. Visit Your Doctor

Another thing you can do to keep your heart healthy is to get health screenings on a regular basis. If you have high cholesterol or high blood pressure but don’t know about it, how are you supposed to get these conditions treated? Knowing what’s going on with your body is a crucial step in keeping it running properly.

This post was provided by the life insurance website Life Cover. To learn more about Crown Life Assurance products visit this website.