Having A Positive Outlook In Life When You Have Heart Disease

Contrary to popular belief, heart disease isn’t just associated with physical activities, but also your thoughts and emotions also hugely affect the health of your ticker. They can hasten the onset of heart disease. It is true that poor diet, lack of exercise, smoking and alcohol consumption in excess increases your risk for heart disease by elevating your blood pressure, LDL (bad) cholesterol levels, and blood sugar (major risk factors), but negative behaviors and thoughts equally heightens the risk.

Having a positive outlook in life can protect against heart disease- backed by evidence. By being positive and having purpose in life and actively practicing gratitude, you can reduce your risk of developing heart disease by as much as 30 percent.

A positive mindset and an attitude of gratitude can just be as beneficial for people who already have cardiovascular disease, which is significant, as they are at an increased risk of having strokes and heart attacks.

Impact of negative thoughts and emotions on your ticker:

Negative attitude is associated with the release of stress hormones and a physical stress response, which results in a higher blood pressure and heart rate. On the other hand, a positive attitude is associated with improved heart health, which decreases the likelihood for such individuals to experience this stress response. This results in a healthier ticker, increased life span, improved quality of life, and fewer instances of heart issues.

Basically, individuals who are optimistic or look on the bright side of negative situations can effectively counter the damage inflicted by stress on the cardiovascular system. Everything boils down to the mindset you have. Another theory is that when you are viewing everything through a negative lens, individuals lean more towards unhealthy coping strategies, for instance, they tend to resort to alcohol, smoking, etc., which can wreak havoc on your health.

Positive attitudes do not just develop in a jiffy, you have to work towards building it. Here are a few tips that can help you:

1.      Practice gratitude by penning down things (at least 5 each day) you are thankful for in life.

2.      Make time for yourself. Do not feel guilty of taking/enjoying a break from time to time. You aren’t a machine, but a human that requires time to unwind several times during the day.

3.      Take a short walk whenever you can. This will help your heart, and releases the feel-good hormones called endorphins, which will fill you up with renewed zest for life.

4.      Create a strong support group consisting of people you value, on whom you can fall back on during hours of need (stressful periods).

5.      Develop a “forgive and forget” attitude, since resentment can actually increase your BP and cause other chronic health issues. Just let it go and move on. Do not hold on to a grudge against something or someone.

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