If ever there was a day to be thinking with your heart and not your head, it’s today. And no, that’s not an excerpt from Corbyn’s pre-speech pep talk...
Today is Tuesday 29 September and it’s also World Heart Day.
With heart disease causing more than a quarter of all deaths in the UK - around 1 every 3 minutes - the health of our hearts should be pretty high on our personal agendas. That means getting out and being active, eating well and preventing the stresses of daily life from consuming us.
"All well and good, but try telling that to my boss” you say. So start small; here are 4 ways that you can help your heart stay strong on any given day of the working week:
- Pack you desk with heart-friendly snacks: stop by the supermarket on your way into the office and invest in a humble apple or two. They’re great for your circulatory system and filled with polyphenols that act like antioxidants in your body. Whilst you’re there, you might as well snap up some blueberries; they are also full of antioxidants as well as vitamin B, which aids your body’s conversion of food to fuel, reducing the risk of cardiovascular issues.
- Take the stairs: not only will your heart thank you for forgoing the lift, your legs and bum will too. If it takes you 3 minutes to walk up the stairs, that's about 20 extra calories burned a day or a worthy 100 calories over the course of a week.
- Swap your chair for a stability ball: this brings the double whammy of helping to improve your posture along with also engaging your abs, all whilst tapping away at the keyboard. The harder you work your core muscles, the more blood they need and there’s one major muscle those abs will be relying on - that’s right, your Strawberry Tart.
- Break free of the office humdrum with a bit of Deskercise: Once an hour, squeeze in 5 minutes of surreptitious leg raising. Seriously, just start moving those legs up and down and over each day, you could burn an extra 180 calories.
So, whatever the deadline, whatever the meeting, put a Tenacious Ticker at the top of your day’s To Do list.
#WorldHeartDay
