Happy World Heart Day! If you’re reading this, that means your heart is working and you are hopefully healthy! The reason there is a day made specifically for one of the most important organs in an individual’s body is to raise awareness and educate people about it.

Many people are unaware that Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) is the world’s number one killer. Therefore, World Heart Day is an ideal platform for people to come together and come up with solutions to fight against CVD and try to minimalize it as much as possible.

Here are some solutions to prevent and to control CVD:

Healthy Choices

Although pizzas and burgers are undeniably mouth-watering and something we can’t help but crave, it’s important to eat our greens as it is necessary to feed our system the vitamins and nutrients it needs in order to continue functioning properly.

Movement

Despite the fact that the only time we move from our couch is to use the toilet or open the fridge in between commercials, it’s easy for one to get used to this routine of immobility. That’s why it is a good idea for you to find out what entertains you and do so by multitasking an act of motion with it. For example, watching an episode of Friends while running on the treadmill, walking your dog outdoors (the weather is getting better!), to shop (most preferably in Dubai Mall since walking in that mall is equivalent to burning all the calories of five McDonald’s meals) or whatever it is that interests you, do it while moving!

Surroundings

It really is true when they say that the energy you give, you receive. It’s vital to be surrounded by positive and good energy in order to spread it around to others. Feeling upset, frustrated or stressed increases the risk of CVD due to the changes in the way your blood normally clots. If you aren’t happy, then there is one thing to do: change your surrounding!

Educate

Education is key, especially when it comes to your health! During World Heart Day (and every other day), it’s important to inform your friends or people who you think are not aware of the symptoms of CVD and the risk factors to it. You can also educate them on how to measure their heart rate in addition to phone applications to keep them calm and de-stressed.

3 Phone Apps to keep you calm:

1. Calm – it was named as the 2017 iPhone App of the Year by Apple. It creates unique audio content (over 100+ meditations) that strengthens mental fitness and tackles some of the biggest mental health challenges of today: stress, anxiety, insomnia and depression.
2. Happify – it claims that its games can help increase your happiness and reduce stress while teaching you life-changing habits
3. Ambi Pro– it involves many ambient noises to help you relax and concentrate by masking the world around us.