Take good Care of your Heart

“Healthy habits are your heart's desire.”

During perimenopause, in the lead up to menopause, there is a significant decrease in estrogen, that can be accompanied with an increase in heart rate and an increased frequency in palpitations. The correlation between hormone replacement therapy and heart health isn’t clear but for symptoms arising related to the heart, HRT is not recommended.

According to studies, heart disease remains the leading cause of death in women in Europe and the United States with the incidence increasing during midlife. While one in thirty-one women will die from breast cancer, one in approximately two to three women will die from heart disease or stroke. While most women are aware of traditional cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors, such as hypertension (high blood pressure), dyslipidemia (changes in lipid levels) and diabetes, they are often unaware of gender specific risk factors that occur in midlife.

Higher rates of comorbidities such as an increase in weight up to obesity, not being metabolically healthy, and even depression and anxiety play a role when it comes to heart health in women during and after the menopause transition.

Now that we have touched on the risk factors, let’s focus on how to keep the heart healthy at any age.

Apart from the nutrition, exercise and mindfulness recommendations below, it is important to stay informed and on top of what our resting heart rate is doing, daily. A change in a few beats per minute up or down, gives us clues on whether we are overall healthy and getting fitter, or if infection or inflammation are causing issues. We will be doing our next newsletter on the ways the body communicates health to us each day and what measures to pay attention to.

And remember, that it can take up to 21 days to adjust to any new habit.

Nutrition:

• Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables before reaching for processed foods. For more accessible options, reach for frozen fruit and vegetables. They are frozen shortly after they're harvested, so they're allowed to ripen fully, which means they're full of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, and freezing "locks in" many of their nutrients.

• Reduce foods high in saturated fats and replace them with “good fats” such as avocado, nuts, seeds and grass-fed options for butter.

• Fermented foods like kimchi, sauerkraut, kefir, tempeh, kombucha, and yoghurt aid digestions, keep your gut healthy and can have a beneficial effect on weight management and heart health.

• Add more fiber and protein to your diet rather than reaching for (processed) carbohydrates.

• Soluble fiber found in beans, oats, and flaxseed may help lower blood cholesterol and can reduce blood pressure and inflammation.

• Exercise:

  • Maintain a good level of aerobic (low intensity) cardio training throughout the week. If you don’t run, bike or do classes that allow for that, get a pair of ankle weights and walk. You can speed walk or choose hillier routes to increase the benefits. You should aim for at least 150 minutes per week.

  • Unless you have any counterindications, choose two more intense workouts that include intervals and raise your heart rate a bit higher. With those - unless you are well trained - stay on a rate of perceived exertion (RPE) of about a 6-7 out of 10.

  • Add exercise snacks to your daily routine that include resistance, body weight or strength training. They have a positive effect on your body composition and your heart and we have examples of them in our video library; like the Kettlebell Foundations.

  • Mindfulness:

    • A happy mind contributes to a happy heart. Stress and the release of accompanying hormones, can be countered by exercises like a gratitude journal where you write down three things that you are grateful for before you go to bed (and as you wake up).

    • Breath work is (finally) receiving more attention and techniques like diaphragmatic and alternate nostril breathing can be found on our app (iOS, Android) when you track symptoms of anxiety.

    • Regular meditation takes us from a fight or flight response to activating our parasympathetic nervous system which can down regulate our heart rate and blood pressure.