Cardiovascular Fitness
This page on HealthMBA.com is about the cardiovascular system and how it has a great factor in the rest of your health. Having a healthy heart and strong blood vessels can build you up, but a broken down system sabotages everything else. Exercise and diet are the key to a healthy heart.
Maintaining a strong and efficient cardiovascular system is central to living a long and productive life. Heart disease is consistently the leading cause of death in men and women, and it's not just an effect of old age. Certain lifestyle habits and genetic factors lead to the heart and the body's network of blood vessels to become overworked and damaged. Building a habit of exercise and diet contributes greatly to keeping the cardiovascular system resilient and a solid foundation to support the other delicate systems in the body. Having efficient blood circulation leads to better metabolism, a robust immune system, and a very good mood and positive self image. These factors build together to make for many years of happy and healthy living.
The heart, literally the central processing unit for our body, is a bundle of strong muscle that really goes the distance every day, all day, pushing and pulling blood through the full extent of the body, from top to toe. Without this strong flow of blood the rest of the body cannot function, especially the brain. The systems such as metabolism, repair, and waste removal rely on a strong, continuous flow, and if the circulation falter, the rest of the systems fall like dominoes. The heart itself has such a strenuous job that if other systems draw too much and if the arteries and veins become restricted and inefficient the brain will crack its whip and push the heart to work even hard, which ultimately leads to a breakdown and a deadly heart attack.
What can you do to take some of the load off of your heart and to boost the rest of the vital systems in your body? Simply engaging in a habit of light to moderate exercise that raises the heart rate for at least 30 minutes a few times a week will work magic. This trains you cardiovascular system to be fit and efficient as your heart will adjust to be well-tuned, and the veins and arteries will widen to help move more blood flow. Another major contribution is the habit of a diet low in fat and sodium. An excess of salt and MSG put extra strain on the circulatory system by drawing in and retaining too much extra fluid, which increases the blood pressure. High blood pressure, also caused by too much stress, wears down the blood vessels and puts extra load on the heart.
Eating fatty, high cholesterol food has a two-pronged negative effect on your body. If you start to gain weight and get a little flab (like a belly or love handles) it becomes extra body volume that your circulatory system has to maintain. The heart then has to push harder to reach all of the areas. A second monkey wrench in your cardiovascular system occurs when fatty cholesterol deposits build up along the inner walls of major arteries, thus constricting the blood flow and causing the heart to redouble its arduous work. The real threat in this condition is for a sudden complete blockage through a blood clot, or a partially thickened mass of blood that stops major blood flow and causes a stroke or heart attack. These conditions have less to do with old age than lifestyle and the ways the an individual maintains their heart health. Taking a few simple steps like taking a brisk walk several times during the week, holding the egg yolks, and stopping the salt shaker will make a tremendous difference. Having a strong and healthy circulatory system will keep you in good form against the rest of the challenges you'll face.
