Health And Your Heart by Jane Thurnell-Read

Keeping our hearts healthy is important, but how do we do it? Fortunately the answers to this are very clear. There are simple things you can do to keep your heart strong and improve your life.

Being overweight, particularly if you carry the weight around your waist, puts unnecessary strain on the heart. Research has shown that many overweight people with angina, raised blood cholesterol and high blood pressure found their condition improved greatly, even after losing only some of their excess weight. Many of those who kept their weight off were able to reduce their medication or even stop it entirely. I recommend our weight loss CD to help you.

Exercise is important for your heart too. If you take regular exercise, it will speed up your basal metabolic rate. This means that you will burn more calories, not only when you are exercising but for some time afterwards as well. People often imagine that they have to exercise hard to have an effect, but its enough just to take exercise that leaves you warm and breathing heavily, but still able to hold a conversation.

Giving up smoking is likely to have a dramatic effect on your heart. Carbon monoxide produced when you smoke cigarettes attaches to red blood cells, so that in smokers up to half the blood can be carrying carbon monoxide rather than oxygen. No wonder many smokers are breathless! If you need help giving up smoking, try one of the books or CDs by Allen Carr. He has helped thousands of people to give up.

And, if you don't already, start flossing your teeth! This may seem bizarre in relation to the heart, but it has been shown that there is a link between gum disease and heart disease. The exact mechanism isn't understood fully yet, but flossing your teeth and having regular dental checks is important for a healthy heart.

Finally, give and receive love. The scientific evidence isn't there (yet) for how important this is for our hearts, but it has been established that people who have loving relationships also tend to have long and happy lives.

The British Heart Foundation has information on many aspects of keeping your heart healthy. Visit their web site www.bhf.org.uk, or if you're in the UK, you can phone their information line on 0845 070 8070

Listen to an excerpt from our Heal Your Body self-hypnosis CD.