It’s February and that means its American Heart Month. Each year, the entire month of February is devoted to raising awareness about heart disease and how each of us can prevent it. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for men and women in the United States with 1 in 4 deaths caused by this disease.

The heart is an amazing organ we tend to take for granted. We expect it to keep us alive without totally understanding the effort that involves. Your heart is an organ that tirelessly works “its heart out” for us daily. Every day, the average human heart beats 72 times a minute or about 100,000 times a day; that’s 3,600,000 time a year and 2.5 billion times during a lifetime. Your heart pushes out 2,000 gallons of blood surging through 60,000 miles of blood vessels every single day. For an organ no larger than your fist, it has its hands full.

So, what are you doing to show the love your heart deserves by keeping it as healthy as can be? Even though certain factors may be outside of your control, heart disease can often be prevented when we make healthy choices and manage health conditions.

Risk factors for heart disease we can’t control

· Age – If you’re a man 45 and older or a woman 55 and older, you are at a greater risk of developing heart disease

· Gender – Even though more men have heart attacks earlier in life, heart disease will kill more women.

· Family history – Know your family medical history of what caused family members deaths and at what age.

9 ways to love your heart and reduce your risk of heart disease

1. Quit smoking

Simply put, never start smoking. Smoking has been well-established as a strong risk factor for heart disease. It deprives the heart muscle and body tissues of oxygen increasing the heart’s workload, damages platelets making blood clots more likely and damages the heart with toxins and burdens it by raising blood pressure.

2. Exercise 30-60 minutes daily

Your heart is a muscle and like all muscles it will become stronger when you exercise it regularly. The longer the duration and intensity of the exercise will result in decreasing your risk for heart disease. However any amount of exercise is better than none at all. The benefits of exercise for the heart include improving cholesterol and fat levels, reducing inflammation in the arteries, helps facilitate weight loss, keeps blood vessels flexible and open, stimulates the development of new arteries to nourish the heart and allows the heart to pump more blood through the body with every beat working at a maximum level, if needed, with less strain.

3. Drink less alcohol, 2 drinks or less a day for men and 1 drink or less a day for women

Even though moderate amounts of alcohol may have some beneficial effects on the heart, drinking more than what is considered in moderation can have damaging consequences. Drinking in moderation is defined as no more than one drink a day for a woman and no more than two drinks a day for a man. Drinking above and beyond moderation can raise the levels of triglycerides in the blood which is associated with atherosclerosis. Too much alcohol can also lead to high blood pressure, heart failure and possible weight gain due to an increased calorie intake. Excessive drinking and binge drinking can lead to stroke, cardiomyopathy, cardiac arrhythmia and sudden cardiac death.

4. Limit stress

Chronic stress is more damaging than you think. It increases cortisol, a hormone that has a direct impact on your blood vessels, blood sugars and hormonal balance. This can lead to inflammation and increased risk for heart disease. We all have stress in our lives but finding ways to de-stress is important to your heart.

5. Eat a balanced, Mediterranean-inspired diet

The Mediterranean diet has proven time after time to be an effective way of eating that is healthful to your heart. The basic principles of the Mediterranean diet are:

· Eat more fruits, veggies, beans, nuts, seeds and grains

· Use olive oil, nuts and avocados as your main fat source

· Eat small servings of non-or low-fat cheese and yogurt

· Eat two to three servings of baked or broiled fish, weekly

· Limit red meat to once or twice a week with a serving size of three ounces.

6. Maintain a healthy weight

Achieving and maintaining a healthy weight for your gender, age and height is an important step in being heart healthy. Weight gain, particularly in the central abdominal area – belly fat – carries an array of risk factors associated with increased heart disease. Obesity by itself, can raise the bad LDL cholesterol, lower the good HDL cholesterol, raise blood pressure and promote insulin resistance. If a person can lose just 7-10% of their excess weight, it can improve heart health.

7. Plan meals to cook at home

The more we cook at home, the more in charge we are of the ingredients and the amount of food we eat. Healthy meals can be made in 30 minutes or less when you plan ahead and are organized for the coming week’s meals and snacks. Buy heart-friendly foods and recipes to feed yourself and your family.

8. Schedule regular check-ups

If you avoid going to the doctor for regular check-ups, how will you know how healthy your heart is? Everyone, from babies to elderly adults, should see their doctor for an annual physical. Knowing what your blood pressure is and your blood lipid levels (total cholesterol, HDL, LDL and triglycerides) can keep you and your doctor informed on your heart health detecting anything out of the ordinary needing to be addressed right away before it becomes a serious issue.

9. Sleep at least 6-7 hours a night

Getting sufficient sleep can be a challenge for many people. But for a healthy heart, it needs to be a priority. Chronic sleep deprivation can make it twice as likely a person over the age of 45 to have a stroke or heart attack. Too little sleep causes disruptions in underlying health conditions and biological processes such as interfering with certain hormones – leptin and ghrelin – which affect appetite and energy expenditure. This can increase weight gain, along with developing insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. It also can increase markers of inflammation increasing heart disease. Even adolescents who lack sleep tend to have higher cholesterol levels, higher body mass indexes, larger waist sizes, and hypertension.

Take home message

We’re only given one heart and the more love we show it by taking good care of it the better it can return that love in the form of rewarding us with a long, healthy life, one heartbeat at a time.