Suffering a heart condition is a frightening experience. Once it’s over, you’ll be keen to get back on track, and here’s how you should do that.
Take the Time to Recover Properly
Understandably, a lot of people try to rush their recovery. They want to get back to their way of life and act like nothing happened. Although this is a good attitude to have in some ways, it’s not good if it means that you won’t be giving your body the proper time to recover after what you’ve been through.
Listen carefully to the advice that your doctor gives to you. If they tell you to rest in bed for a few weeks, this is what you should do, even if you don’t really want to. There are some organisations, like Bria Health Services, which offer cardio rehabilitation. This means you’ll have expert care and gives you a better chance of good long-term health.
Improve Your Diet
The fact that you’ve had a heart problem should give you a wake-up call. This means that there could have been something in your lifestyle that’s caused the problem to happen. Your diet plays a big part in the health of your heart, so you need to avoid fatty foods and anything that could damage your heart.
Eating plenty of oily fish is a good idea because it’s a healthy source of protein that’s good for your heart. Red meat can be very bad for you if you eat too much of it, so think about replacing red meat with fish or lean white meat. Then, just do the common sense things like cutting down on fatty foods and eating more fruit and vegetables.
Get the Right Exercise Balance
On top of a healthy diet, you’ll need to focus on getting some exercise. But, first of all, make sure that you talk to your doctor and get advice about how much exercise you should be doing and how vigorous it should be. It’s important to get the balance right because you don’t want to put too much pressure on your heart to begin with.
It’s especially important to do cardiovascular exercise if you’re overweight. Being overweight put unnecessary pressure on your heart and could be one of the big reasons why you had a problem with it. By losing weight, your arteries will be free to pump blood around your body more easily, and your chance of suffering a heart attack or stroke will fall.
Try to be as Normal as Possible
This might seem like a vague thing to say, but getting back to a normal way of life once your recovery is complete is very important. You don’t want to be one of those people that shuts themselves away from the world and worries about their health endlessly.
The healthiest way to live is to live normally, the way you did before you had your heart problem. Of course, this might not be possible at first. But getting back to normal in time should always be what you’re aiming for.
Getting back on track can be a daunting prospect, but these tips should help you get there.
