Happy and Healthy: Looking After Your Cardiovascular System

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Maintaining good cardiovascular health (lungs, heart and circulatory system) is crucial for staying in good health. If you want to boost your fitness, endurance and improve your cardiovascular health in general, here are a few ways to go about it!

 

 

Stop Smoking

Smoking is bad for just about every cell in the body. It can weaken the bones, lower the immune system, cause over sixteen different types of cancer, age the skin, cause teeth to fall out and so much more. If you need a reason to stop, there are plenty! Cardiovascular health is just one of them, since smoking reduces the amount of oxygen the tissues in the body receives and damages blood vessels, smokers will always have reduced lung function.

To improve your fitness, quitting smoking is a smart choice. Switch to vaping first if you need to, this can help you transition to becoming a non smoker since you can gradually reduce the nicotine. You can buy e-liquids and premium vape juices as well as all of the components you need online. Many people have quit this way, and just the act of switching from smoking to vaping is better for your lungs. This is because unlike with cigarettes, there are no byproducts from burning tobacco when you vape.

 

Reach a Healthy BMI

When you carry excess weight your heart has to work harder. An unhealthy diet that’s high in fat, sugars and salt can cause hardening of the arteries and affect the way the heart pumps. This can cause heart attack, heart failure or angina. Getting down to a healthy BMI massively slashes your risk of these heart related problems, so speak to your doctor or use an online calculator to work out what you should weigh. Even reducing your body weight by five or ten percent (so in a 200lb person this can be as little as 10 lbs) can make a huge amount of difference.

With less body mass, your heart doesn’t have to work as hard to pump blood to all of your cells. And plus, losing weight means adopting a healthier diet which is generally lower in things like saturated fat.

 

Exercise

As well as helping you to lose weight and reach that healthy BMI, exercise will also strengthen the cardiovascular system. It will improve fitness and endurance, and mean you can go for longer without getting out of breath. If you find yourself struggling while carrying in groceries from the car, when having to climb more than one flight of stairs or having to run for the bus, it’s a sign you need to boost your cardiovascular system.

If you’re very unfit, the trick is to start small and build it up. Aim to exercise for thirty minutes three times a week, if you’re going to a gym cycling is a good option. Start on a low resistance, and work on building up to an hour’s exercise before increasing the difficulty. Once you have a foundation level of fitness you can start pushing yourself and going for the burn. If you invest in a fitness tracker like a Fitbit, this can help you to see exactly how much you’re doing and how hard you’re working, allowing you to track your progress and continue pushing yourself.