Health: Healthy Heart

In this article we want to tell you how you can get a healthy heart, what drinks and foods to stay away from and what to do to strengthen the beat in your chest. We have some interesting facts about your heart you may not know.

healthy heart

Your heart is a muscular organ which is responsible for pumping blood through the blood vessels of your body. Your heart is composed of cardiac muscle, which means heart-related muscles. Thanks to the repeated, rhythmic contractions of your involuntary muscle tissue you are alive. Your heart is the only organ in your body that has involuntary muscle tissue.

Healthy Heart Rate

The average human heart beating at 72 BPM. If you look into the details the average heart rate for males is 70 bpm, for females the average heart rate is 75 bpm. But far more important is the ability of your heart rate to get back to normal after working out. This rate is called the recovery heart rate. Most gyms and general practitioner`s measure the recovery heart rate in a cardiac stress test. As a rule of thumb: The faster your heart rate slows after exercise, the healthier you are.

Good to know: Sports scientists found out that men whose heart rates did not drop at least 25 beats per minute within one minute of finishing an intense workout (e.g. cardiac stress test on the treadmill) were more likely to suffer fatal heart attacks than those whose bpms dropped efficiently.

healthy heart exercise

If you want to strengthen your heart, you have to hit the cardio department in your gym. You should start an interval training regime. Calculate your maximum heart rate (MHR) by subtracting your age from 220. After a five minute warmup, alternate two minutes working at 65% of your MHR and two minutes at 90% for 20 minutes in total. If you do this three times a week, you should be able to see the first improvements withing two to three months. Your heart will become significantly healthier and stronger.

heart healthy diet

If you want to get a healthy heart, you should not eat more carbohydrates and fat than you need to cover your energy needs. The more carbs you consume, the higher your insulin levels will be. Insulin increases your heart disease risk as it contributes to the inflammatory process which leads to hardening of your arteries. High levels of Insulin also boost your stress hormones which in turn raise your blood pressure which damages your arterial walls and makes it easy for Cholesterol to slip inside.

If that sounds shocking to you, we can suggest you drink a glass of red wine each day. Various studies showed that the amount alcohol found in a glass of red wine each day helps to control blood sugar levels and therefore insulin. But do not overdo it. Stimulants like alcohol or caffeine are the biggest contributing factors in raising your blood pressure.