Dr. Steele: Ever wonder how to keep your heart healthy as you age? Tune in to find out. My name is Dr. Erica Steele. I’m a holistic doctor in family practice. I hold six degrees in my field, and they’re all in the natural healthcare space. I’ve been in natural healthcare for over 20 years and chose a. To be a Drugless doctor.
So let’s get into it. Heart health is essential, especially as we age, because the risk of heart disease typically increases. So here are some tips for maintaining heart health as you age, number one. Regular exercise, that’s movement. Movement of your body through physical activity can help not only reduce blood pressure but also improve circulation and reduce your overall risk of heart disease.
You want to aim for at least 30 minutes of moderately intensive exercise, such as a brisk walk on most days of the week. So if you have an Apple watch, you can track it. And then also, you can. Spike light jog. There are so many different physical activities that you can do. Just find something that you enjoy and stick with it.
Second, maintaining a healthy diet. Eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein, and healthy fats can help lower the risk of heart disease and improve overall cardiovascular risk. You want to avoid processed foods, added sugars, as well as saturated fats as those.
Definitely contribute to heart disease as well as a list of conditions such as diabetes and obesity, and metabolic syndrome. Third, manage your blood pressure as well as your cholesterol. High blood pressure and high cholesterol are some of the significant risk factors for heart disease. The American Medical Association’s blood pressure definitely is one of those.
Your healthcare provider can help you manage these conditions through lifestyle changes, or if they’re high and you’re at significant risk for heart attack or stroke, they can also prescribe medication. I do not prescribe medication in my practice, nor am I an alternative doctor, so I don’t replace medication.
We want to work on lifestyle changes for a naturally occurring substance before they become an issue. For example, once the blood pressure is really high, it puts the person at risk. And so just taking herbs or things like that often is not the best approach when working to help.
I tend to tell my patients that dehydration is the number one cause of hypertension. So make sure you drink a minimum of half your body weight, ounces, and water. Fourth, don’t smoke. So smoking is a significant risk factor for heart disease and stroke. It allows for decreased oxygen in the body, which has reduced oxygen in the cells, not to mention all the different heavy metals and chemicals.
So if you smoke, quitting is one of the most important things you can do to improve your health. So if you need support and don’t want to use a pharmacological, Please feel free to reach out. We do have a smoking sensation, A D I Y course. It is a 30-day course, and we also give you homeopathic tools to reduce cravings and detoxify your body.
Fifth, you wanna control your blood sugar levels, so if you have diabetes, it’s important to manage blood sugar levels through diet, exercise, and if you need medication, which will help reduce the risk of heart disease. I’m not saying that you always need medication. Only sometimes necessary to have to stabilize, but that’s a conversation between you, your healthcare providers, and your healthcare team.
I work in concert with or integrative. I only replace a few things. However, I can reduce, if not eliminate, medication usage depending on the patient and patient compliance. Every case is different, so I always like to look. What’s going on first, and I take an efficient approach to it.
Number six, you wanna manage your stress. So stress, ugh, is like gasoline on any fire; it can increase the risk of heart disease. So you want to practice stress management techniques such as deep breathing or meditation. Or mindset training can help reduce stress and improve overall, improve your overall health and well-being.
Lastly, regular checkups. So regular checkups with your healthcare provider or professional are critical to detect and prevent heart disease and monitor any medication you may be taking for existing conditions. So your allopathic doctor’s role, I like to call them firefighters of medicine.
That’s what their role is. They’re trained to look for and identify fires and put them out before. They happen. Doctors like me, we are more like medical detectives. We find out why after the fact, the fires have started. But also, we’re constantly monitoring and making sure practically before things happen.
We teach people to be very proactive instead of reactive. So working with people on their mindset, emotions, stress, eating habits, and lifestyle changes. All of that plays in before, so when you go to your regular annual checkup, your medical doctor says everything looks good because you’ve been very proactive throughout the year.
It’s important to note that everyone is different, and the best approach for you may vary depending on your personal health history. I also look at genetics. As a part of it, trauma has a huge role in many health conditions. So it’s always good to have a healthcare team, not just one provider and one different perspective, but people from all different perspectives.
I love working in teams. I love crosswords with different providers and an integrative style. Because we all don’t have the correct answers, and we’re all imperfect. We are human beings, especially doctors. We do make mistakes, and we overlook things. So we must look at all different perspectives, not just the standard diagnose and management model.
If you want to learn more about ways to help be proactive with your health, tune in and subscribe to learn more.