Switzer Daily: 5 tips for a good ticker

Simple, natural habits can positively impact your heart health. Energy demands of the heart are among the highest in the body requiring significant amounts of cellular energy to function.

Here are 5 habits that can help support your heart health:

1. Stay active

Building exercise and physical movement into your every day routine isn’t hard. Find ways to move at work or while travelling, like taking the stairs, standing at your desk and having walking or standing meetings.  If you’re not making it to the gym, then aiming for 10 to 30-minute of moderate to intense bouts of exercise through the week may work better for you. Aim for at least 150 minutes a week.  Muscle strengthening exercises are also important, so aim to do these twice a week. This can be at the gym with weight training or part of your lifestyle – like carrying children, the shopping or doing gardening. Heavy exercise can cause oxidation, and depletion of Ubiquinol. Ubiquinol is an antioxidant important for cellular energy (more on this later).

2. Support your circulation

Anything that supports your circulation has the potential to support your heart health. One of the most important changes you can make if you are a smoker is to stop. Smoking has many negative effects including oxidation and impacting blood and oxygen circulation, which in turn affects cellular energy production. Exercise also helps support circulation and oxygenation of all the cells.

3. Eat smarter

Incorporating more plant-based foods in your diet can help provide more fibre and antioxidants to support heart health. The globally-recognised diet for helping heart health is the Mediterranean diet, rich in plant-based foods and lean proteins, such as  fish and nuts that provide omega fatty acids.

4. Maintain Ubiquinol levels

Ubiquinol is a potent antioxidant required for every cell of the body, including heart cells. Ubiquinol helps to maintain a healthy heart and cardiovascular system. A young and healthy body has more than 98% of CoQ10 present in the plasma as Ubiquinol. Several factors cause natural Ubiquinol levels to decline, including advancing ageing and heavy physical exercise. An enzyme NQO1 converts conventional CoQ10 (Ubiquinone) into Ubiquinol during intestinal absorption, however NQO1 decreases with age, affecting the antioxidant defence system of the cell.  Ubiquinol may also help support healthy cholesterol levels.

5. Proactively manage any health risk

Managing health conditions and risks are important. Make seeing your doctor and other health practitioners a priority and keep on top of any health condition. You can find out more information about ubiquinol at www.ubiquinol.net.au

As appeared on Switzer Daily.