Keeping Your Heart Happy and Healthy

Published at 4:17pm 6th February 2018.

February is National Heart month and as we get older, our body goes through many natural changes which can, and do, affect the heart and circulatory system. No matter how many times you go to the gym, arteries harden and if your diet is poor, this can lead to heart complications. Home Instead Senior Care have been speaking to Stray FM discussing various tips to help keep our heart healthy for a long time to come.

Never has society been more aware of the importance to get regular exercise and eat a balanced and healthy diet, but with old age comes weaker muscles and it's easy to forget that the heart is the most important muscle.

A weaker heart results in less blood being pumped around the body and as we slow down in life with age, elderly people can suffer from a shortness in breath, decreased appetite and swelling of the feet and ankles. Home Instead Senior Care make many regular home visits across the Harrogate district to the elderly in a bid to keep them independent for as long as possible and during National Heart month, the focus is on healthy eating and remaining active.

Happy Heart

The Eat Well Plate

Home Instead Senior Care promote a well-balanced and healthy diet with the help of "the eat well plate" which is recommendations via the government on how we can best achieve a healthy lifestyle, partly through what we consume on a daily basis.

Roughly a third of your weekly diet should consist of fruit and veg, alongside complex carbohydrates such as bread and pasta. Ideally some dairy too and the correct fats are important as well, not forgetting protein along the way.

Eat Well

Common Sense

Although "the eat well plate" is only a guide, implementing common sense along the way is understandably key to keeping the heart healthy. Home Instead Senior Care encourage us all, not just their clients, to exercise when possible and it doesn't have to be anything too strenuous. Stop smoking and cut down on drinking.

Have a listen to directors Andrew and Sheena chatting to Stray FM's Pete Egerton about National Heart Month.

Read and listen to more from Stray FM's Health and Wellbeing show.