Eat a healthy, balanced diet

A low-fat, high-fibre diet is recommended, including plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables (five portions a day) and whole grains. You should limit the amount of salt that you eat to no more than 6g (0.2oz) a day because too much salt will increase your blood pressure. Six grams of salt is about one teaspoonful.

There are two types of fat: saturated and unsaturated. You should avoid food containing saturated fats because these will increase your cholesterol levels.

Foods high in saturated fat include:

•        meat pies
•        sausages and fatty cuts of meat
•        butter
•        ghee – a type of butter that is often used in Indian cooking
•        lard
•        cream
•        hard cheese
•        cakes and biscuits
•        foods that contain coconut or palm oil

However, a balanced diet should include a small amount of unsaturated fat, which will help reduce your cholesterol levels.

Foods high in unsaturated fat include:

•        oily fish
•        avocados
•        nuts and seeds
•        sunflower, rapeseed, olive and vegetable oils

Be more physically active

Combining a healthy diet with regular exercise is the best way to maintain a healthy weight. Having a healthy weight reduces your chances of developing high blood pressure.

Regular exercise will make your heart and blood circulatory system more efficient, it will lower your cholesterol level, and also keep your blood pressure at a healthy level.

– Do you know how long you spend sitting each day?

– Irish people spend on average 5.3 hours sitting each weekday

– Do you want to get out and about more?

– Visit the New HSE Website to Get Ireland Active

How many hours do you spend sitting each day – at work, in the car, at meals, watching TV? You might be surprised to learn that Irish people spend on average 5.3 hours sitting each weekday!

Now you can find your own daily sitting total with the sitting time calculator on the HSE’s new website getirelandactive.ie . The calculator adds up the number of hours you spend sitting and evaluates your risk of ‘sitting disease’. The website also suggests tips on how to fight ‘sitting disease’ by building more activity into your day.

Give up smoking

If you smoke, giving up will reduce your risk of developing CHD. Smoking is a major risk factor for developing atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries). It also causes the majority of cases of coronary thrombosis in people under the age of 50.

Research has shown that you are up to four times more likely to successfully give up smoking if you use support together with stop-smoking medicines, such as patches or gum. Ask your doctor about this or visit www.quit.ie.

Reduce your alcohol consumption

If you drink, make sure that you stick to recommended guidelines. The recommended weekly limit of alcohol consumption for men is twenty one standard drinks and for women fourteen standard drinks. Always avoid binge drinking.

Keep your blood pressure under control

You can keep your blood pressure under control by eating a healthy diet that is low in saturated fat, exercising regularly, and if required, taking the appropriate medication to lower your blood pressure. Your target blood pressure should be below 140/85mmHg. If you have high blood pressure, ask your GP to check your blood pressure regularly.

Keep your diabetes under control

Maintain a healthy weight

– Do you know how long you spend sitting each day?

– Irish people spend on average 5.3 hours sitting each weekday

– Do you want to get out and about more?

– Visit the New HSE Website to Get Ireland Active

How many hours do you spend sitting each day – at work, in the car, at meals, watching TV? You might be surprised to learn that Irish people spend on average 5.3 hours sitting each weekday!

Now you can find your own daily sitting total with the sitting time calculator on the HSE’s new website getirelandactive.ie . The calculator adds up the number of hours you spend sitting and evaluates your risk of ‘sitting disease’. The website also suggests tips on how to fight ‘sitting disease’ by building more activity into your day.

Source:   www.hse.ie

Cardio exercise, like running, can keep your heart healthy, but it doesn’t make up for a bad diet. Eating more fruits, veggies, whole grains, nuts, fish, poultry, and vegetable oil, while cutting back on red and processed meats, and added sugar, can lower risk of heart disease by more than 30 percent and chance of stroke by 20 percent. There are a large range of resources online giving information on diet and exercise for instance an interesting article on 12 Foods That Will Protect Your Heart to reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease and run strong can be viewed on:

 Source:  www.runnersworld.com/heart/12-foods-that-will-protect-your-heart/slide/12

Build New HABITS
Building a new habit in essence is all about building new pathways in your brain and reinforcing those new brain
connections, over and over and over again until you rewire your brain; because, cells that wire together fire together.
Researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology have linked habit formation to a primitive lump of brain
tissue near the centre of the skull called the basal ganglia.
The job of the basal ganglia is central to recalling patterns and acting on them. This process of turning a habit into a
ritual using the basal ganglia is the key to habit formation. When this happens the basal ganglia takes over a series of
actions automatically just like brushing your teeth in the morning, so you no longer have to actively make a decision
to do it. It’s done automatically – the key is that this process saves the brain energy and willpower.

Building a new habit is not about willpower (essentially willpower is a muscle in the brain that becomes depleted
with usage). So the key learning point is that the more habits you are able to automate by turning them into a ritual the more energy you will have to devote to other tasks at work or at home.
Transforming a habit isn’t easy or quick or necessarily painless but it is possible. Here are some success strategies.

-Know your why ?
Whats motivating you to build this new habit? As they say if you know your why the how gets easier. Changing a habit starts with you deciding to change.

-Frame positively.
I believe you are far more likely to persist with a habit that you frame positively (becoming healthier, eating more veg, taking more exercise) rather than framing it negatively (watching less TV, eating less junk food, giving up chocolate).
Remember if you are running away from something then that means that something is chasing you!
For example if you say to yourself I’m not eating chocolate anymore, part of your brain is focusing on ‘not any more’
while another part hears the word chocolate. If you’re having a good day, and willpower and focus are strong then the ‘ not anymore ‘ part wins out but if or rather when you’re tired or stressed or distracted the brain will gravitate
towards chocolate !
The people you spend time with have a big influence on your habits. So if you spend time with people who eat healthily and exercise regularly, chances are you’re going to eat healthily and exercise regularly as well. And remember that emotion is highly contagious; every happy friend you have will boost your happiness by 9% while every grumpy friend you have will decrease your happiness by 7%.
Changing a habit isn’t easy and consumes a lot of mental energy. Focus on one habit at a time, and once that habit
is ritualised then you have the mental energy to work on another. Many people overestimate what they can achieve
in one year but underestimate what they can achieve in five!
I also believe it’s very helpful to design your environment to support your habits. This might be a case of getting to bed earlier or bringing healthy snacks to work with you (walnuts are a terrific mid afternoon snack); maybe you even need to sleep in your gym gear!
Finally it’s important to celebrate the small successes along the way. Reward yourself often and remember that small
positive changes can lead to big results over time.
What’s the habit you’d like to build or break starting today that can open up new possibilities for you in your life
one year from now?

Stretching Exercises
Stretching should be an essential part of any exercise programme, as it helps to prevent injury and keep the body
loose. Working on your flexibility is also an important part of any rehabilitation programme after an injury. Exercises to strengthen the lower back and stomach muscles, often called core stabilisation exercises, are now recognised as being key to injury prevention. Stretching is also a great way to relax and unwind. The best stretching routine is the one that works best for you. Your doctor or physiotherapist can help you plan a specific programme for your needs.

Support
-We all become our associations
Hang out with more healthy people; find the healthiest people you can and spend as much time with them as
possible.
Friends can also be a great motivational support to encourage you to keep going on an exercise program –
you become your associations! Strong social support is very helpful for people suffering from depression; a real
win-win, taking exercise and boosting friendships.

Spirit-Mind-Body
Spend more time in Nature, what I call green exercise – nurturing that sense of connection
to nature fosters feelings of peacefulness and connectedness that help feed body, mind and spirit.
The growing appreciation of mind-body-spirit interface can be seen by the increasing popularity of more holistic
forms of exercise such as yoga, pilates and tai chi, all of which can have significant benefits for your wellbeing.
A JOURNEY OF TRANSFORMATION
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

Source: http://doctormarkrowe.com/wp-content/uploads/GHT-Jan-17.pdf