Maintaining or improving your heart health can be hard, especially if you don’t know where to start. For many of us, it all depends on the lifestyle choices that we make throughout the day.

Its definitely better to be as proactive as possible so here are 5 simple lifestyle changes that you can make to help maintain a healthy heart.

1- Take a Daily Walk

Daily walking has been shown to make improvements to many cardiac risk factors. It helps with things like controlling cholesterol, vascular stiffness, stress management, maintaining healthy blood pressure and the list goes on. Some of these benefits can be seen by walking as little as 30 – 45 minutes daily.

2 – Eat Your veggies

A lot of us don’t get nearly the amount of vegetables that our bodies need throughout the day, but eating plenty of vegetables can have a big impact on your heart healthy. Adding more vegetables to your meals can help improve your cholesterol, help control blood pressure, and helps control the portion of “unhealthy” foods you eat with each meal and throughout the day.

3 – Get Quality Sleep

Constant sleep deprevation has been shown to put people a higher risk for cardiovascular disease and other heart-related events. Not getting a good 7 hours of sleep may be ok for a couple of nights, but after a while, it really starts to take a toll on our heart health. Start with the things you can control like putting away bright tech devices a few hours before bedtime, or sticking to a set sleeping routine at a certain time to help you consistently get quality sleep.

4 – Don’t Drink Your Calories

Soda and other Sugary drink add a lot of calories to your diet with little to no nutritional value. You definitely want to keep your soda intake to a minimum and make sure you’re hydrating yourself with water throughout the day. Drinking plenty of water improves heart health by making it easier for your heart to pump blood throughout your body.

5- Get Your Workout in

Resistance training or strength training can also help maintain a healthy heart. Along with cardio, strength training at least 2 times a week can help control weight and maintain a healthy body. Its all about making it a priority and sticking to your game plan.

This is just a starting point for helping you keep up with your heart health. There a plenty of other hacks out there that may help you keep your heart healthy throughout your life. Along with some of the lifestyle influences on heart health, it’s also important to get regular check-ups even if you maintain healthy habits.