Top 5 lifestyle changes to improve your cholesterol

 

Lifestyle changes can help reduce cholesterol, keep you off cholesterol-lowering medications or enhance the effect of your medications. Here are five lifestyle changes to get you started. By Mayo Clinic Staff High cholesterol increases your risk of heart disease and heart attacks. You can improve cholesterol with medications, but if you'd rather first make lifestyle changes to improve your cholesterol, try these five healthy changes. If you already take medications, these changes can improve their cholesterol-lowering effect. 1. Eat heart-healthy foods Even if you have years of unhealthy eating under your belt, making a few changes in your diet can reduce cholesterol and improve your heart health. Choose healthier fats. Saturated fats, found primarily in red meat and dairy products, raise your total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, the "bad" cholesterol. As a rule, you should get less than 7 percent of your daily calories from saturated fat. Choose leaner cuts of meat, low-fat dairy and monounsaturated fats — found in olive and canola oils — for healthier options. Eliminate trans fats. Trans fats affect cholesterol levels by increasing the "bad" cholesterol and lowering the "good" cholesterol. This bad combination increases the risk of heart attacks. Trans fats can be found in fried foods and many commercial products, such as cookies, crackers and snack cakes. But don't rely on packages that are labeled "trans fat-free." In the United States, if a food contains less than 0.5 grams of trans fat in a serving, it can be labeled "trans fat-free." Even small amounts of trans fat can add up if you eat foods that contain small amounts of trans fat. Read the ingredient list, and avoid foods with partially hydrogenated oils. Eat foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3 fatty acids don't affect LDL cholesterol. They have other heart benefits, such as helping to increase high-density lipoprotein (HDL, or "good") cholesterol, reducing your triglycerides, a type of fat in your blood, and reducing blood pressure. Some types of fish — such as salmon, mackerel and herring — are rich in omega-3 fatty acids. Other good sources of omega-3 fatty acids include walnuts, almonds and ground flaxseeds. Increase soluble fiber. There are two types of fiber — soluble and insoluble. Both have heart-health benefits, but soluble fiber also helps lower your LDL levels. You can add soluble fiber to your diet by eating oats and oat bran, fruits, beans, lentils, and vegetables. Add whey protein. Whey protein is one of two proteins in dairy products — the other is casein. Whey protein may account for many of the health benefits attributed to dairy. Studies have shown that whey protein given as a supplement lowers both LDL and total cholesterol. You can find whey protein powders in health food stores and some grocery stores. Follow the package directions for how to use them. 2. Exercise on most days of the week and increase your physical activity Exercise can improve cholesterol. Moderate physical activity can help raise high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, the "good" cholesterol. With your doctor's OK, work up to at least 30 minutes of exercise a day. Adding physical activity, even in 10-minute intervals several times a day, can help you begin to lose weight. Just be sure that you can keep up the changes you decide to make. Consider: Taking a brisk daily walk during your lunch hour Riding your bike to work Swimming laps Playing a favorite sport To stay motivated, find an exercise buddy or join an exercise group. And remember, any activity is helpful. Even taking the stairs instead of the elevator or doing a few situps while watching television can make a difference. 3. Quit smoking If you smoke, stop. Quitting might improve your HDL cholesterol level. And the benefits don't end there. Within 20 minutes of quitting, your blood pressure and heart rate decrease. Within one year, your risk of heart disease is half that of a smoker. Within 15 years, your risk of heart disease is similar to someone who never smoked. 4. Lose weight Carrying even a few extra pounds contributes to high cholesterol. Losing as little as 5 to 10 percent of your weight can improve cholesterol levels. Start by evaluating your eating habits and daily routine. Consider your challenges to weight loss and ways to overcome them. Small changes add up. If you eat when you're bored or frustrated, take a walk instead. If you pick up fast food for lunch every day, pack something healthier from home. For snacks, munch on carrot sticks or air-popped popcorn instead of potato chips. Don't eat mindlessly. And look for ways to incorporate more activity into your daily routine, such as using the stairs instead of taking the elevator or parking farther from your office. 5. Drink alcohol only in moderation Moderate use of alcohol has been linked with higher levels of HDL cholesterol — but the benefits aren't strong enough to recommend alcohol for anyone who doesn't already drink. If you drink alcohol, do so in moderation. For healthy adults, that means up to one drink a day for women of all ages and men older than age 65, and up to two drinks a day for men age 65 and younger. Too much alcohol can lead to serious health problems, including high blood pressure, heart failure and stroke. If lifestyle changes aren't enough ... Sometimes healthy lifestyle changes aren't enough to lower cholesterol levels. Make sure the changes you make are ones you can continue to do, and don't be disappointed if you don't see results immediately. If your doctor recommends medication to help lower your cholesterol, take it as prescribed, but continue your lifestyle changes. Lifestyle changes can help you keep your medication dose low. June 19, 2015 References See more In-depth

8 Common Living Habits That May Shorten your Life

 

Health Lifestyle by Carl Preston For many of us, the idea of being able to live forever is one thing we never really stop believing until the day that we die. The problem is that many of us also have lifestyles that encourage a shorter lifespan and can actually reduce our time to come to grips with mortality. For anyone in this position, we recommend that you consider these ten lifestyle choices that many of us are making that actually puts each and every one of us in a position whereby we could be drastically shortening our own lifespans, even if it seems pretty healthy!   1. Living Alone Humans need interaction; we need love in our lives. If we want to find that love, though, we have to be able to get out here and find it. Those who take the easy “stress-free” option of living alone are actually limiting the happiness and enjoyment that we can get from the world. Never sharing love and intimacy with another person is a sure-fire way to reduce your lifespan by a considerable margin.   2. Sitting Too Often Do you work at a PC? Then you need to consider the importance of standing up and getting a bit more rest. It’s estimated by the JAMA Internal Medicine study had sitting for more than 11h per day increases the risk of death by up to 40% over the next three years alone! This is something that you need to consider moving forward, so if you need to get a stand-up desk you should!   3. Lack of Social Life Neglecting our friends and loved ones for solitary time isn’t always a bad thing; we all need our own personal space. However, taking the time that is needed to have a social life can improve our lifespan! Likewise, failing to do so increase our chances of passing on early. Prolonged loneliness can have the same negative health effects of having 15 cigarettes a day!   4. TV loving Many of us love to spend our time sitting in front of the TV and just zoning out, vegging there for hours to come. This can bring on things like diabetes and even heart disease. According to the NY times, every single hour of TV you watch after being 25 reduces your lifespan by around 21 minutes. That’s quite the state, but it’s something you really need to consider moving forward with your life if you want to live healthily.   5. Taking Extended time off You might think that quitting your job or going for a gap year could be a good thing but it’s actually quite unhealthy for the body. Your mind will get rested, sure, but you will find that premature death is far more common if you are taking that time off due to the serious inactivity that your body will be going through when moving forward.   6. Helping Annoying People Being the kind member of the workforce who helps out that annoying colleague might seem like a great idea, but how do you come to terms with the stress that they cause you? Putting yourself through the mill just to be nice might seem like a sacrifice that’s worth it for karma points, but it really isn’t if it’s driving you up the wall!  This can put you into stressful situations you really had no reason to be involved in.   7. Sleeping In The worst thing that you can do for your sleeping pattern is getting used to sleeping more than eight hours on a regular basis. It’s unhealthy for the body so even if you can get those extra hours, limit yourself to 7 hours at the most.   8. Exercising Too Much The last thing that you want to do is lessen your lifespan but unfortunately going through too much exercise in a week can do this to you. Just go to a doctor and get them to give you an idea of what you should be taking on exercise wise as it will give you much better ideas about how you can improve your health and your quality of life in general – just remember that seemingly being too healthy and exercising too much is going to make a marked difference to your overall lifespan moving through life.

Become more productive

 

Productivity is about the effective and efficient use of all resources. Resources include time, people, knowledge, information, finance, equipment, space, energy, materials.

Want to know more ways to become more productive? Check out the infographics below.

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