Despite our growing understanding of medicine and the human body, heart disease is one of the leading causes of death in America and has been for nearly 100 years. Why is that? Well. Heart disease is complicated and dealing with it often requires difficult lifestyle changes.
What is Heart Disease?
We’ve gone over the basics of heart disease in an article last year (click here to read it), but as a quick refresher, heart disease is a catch all term for all sorts of cardiovascular diseases. It can refer to blood clots, arrythmia, sudden cardiac arrest, and a whole lot more.
Most of the time, when we talk about heart disease, we don’t talk about cures or ways to manage it, but instead how to reduce your risk to get heart disease in the first place. This is because most of the common types of heart disease aren’t “curable,” they lead to sudden damage that results in long-term injury or even death. The solutions to some forms of heart disease can be surgical like stents, pacemakers, or bypasses. These often lead to extended hospital stays and a large decrease in quality of life.
Which is why it’s impossible to have a cure for heart disease, but a lot of progress has been made on understanding the foundations of this deadly epidemic and knowing how to help reduce risk.
Most Common Causes of Heart Disease
Heart disease is often caused by high cholesterol, high blood pressure, or smoking. You can be genetically predisposed to a high cholesterol or high blood pressure, but they are often caused by a sedentary lifestyle and a poor diet. Your risk for high blood pressure could also be due to illness or stress. These reasons are why it’s often difficult to lower your risk of heart disease to begin with.
Keys to a Healthy Heart
Making health-conscious decisions is all about consistency. You need to establish strong routines and set clear goals on how to make sure you’re able to stay healthy. These don’t need to be complicated fitness routines or involve expensive gym memberships/home workout equipment. You just need to pay closer attention to your meals and make sure you’re on the move.
Cutting out unhealthy foods, drugs, and lifestyle choices is difficult—and it seems easier than ever to lock yourself in and order takeout every day. But, that’s all the more reason to focus and start to figure out what needs to change in your life. Healthier lifestyle choices start with redefining our habits, and that requires you to decide it's time to change. We have a guide on how to identify bad habits and how to replace them with new ones, check it out here.
One of your best tools to stay healthy is to get regular checkups from your doctor. Getting annual checkups is a great way to get an accurate reading on your vitals. You can also get specific feedback from your doctor about what you need to be healthy and minimize your risk for heart disease.
Aflac Wellness Pays you to Stay Healthy
One of my biggest motivators to have regular doctor visits is Aflac’s wellness program. With my two Aflac plans, I get paid $100 when I go get my annual physical. Additionally, I know that if I do find myself being diagnosed with an illness/disease, Aflac has my back when it comes to affording treatment.
If you’d like to learn more about Aflac’s Wellness Benefits, click here.
Want to learn how to find a doctor nearby? Check out this article linked here.