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Easy Tips To Give Up Smoking To Keep Your Heart Healthy

It’s essential that you take the plunge to give up smoking in order to ensure your heart’s health, and to live a healthier and more fulfilling life. We frequently hear about how smoking hurts the lungs. Why not, it’s true after all, lungs of smokers take in more than 7,000 chemicals—70 of which are known to cause cancer—from cigarettes. But in no way should we underestimate its effect on the heart and blood vessels. Smoking is the chief cause of heart disease, at the same time is one of the most preventable causes of heart disease.

Your arteries become stiff when you smoke, which makes your heart work harder. Smoking also can set off an abnormal heart rhythm and raise blood pressure, which are leading causes of stroke. Smoking lowers HDL or "good" cholesterol (high levels of LDL or “bad” cholesterol is a major cardiovascular disease risk factor), causes thickening and narrowing of blood vessels, makes blood sticky and more likely to clot, which can block blood flow to the heart and brain, thus increasing risk for a life-threatening heart attack or stroke, and encourages plaque (fat, cholesterol, calcium and other substances) accumulation in blood vessels and even plaque rupture which can lead to a heart attack.

Smoking also causes thickening of the heart and reduces the pumping ability of the ticker—both of which are associated with heart failure. It is always a good time to give up smoking to protect the health of your heart. The longer and more cigarettes individuals without heart disease smoked, the greater the damage to the structure of their ticker and its function. If you set your heart and mind to it, quitting won’t be difficult as it seems. 

The following strategies will make it a little easier to quit smoking:

Decrease nicotine intake slowly and steadily- Instant of stopping it instantly, it’s best to take your time to cut back on smoking, which will put you at a better place to achieve this goal.

Figure out smoking triggers- Often stress, visiting a preferred smoking spot, or having a lot of physical pain might make your want to smoke. So find what triggers the desire in you to smoke so as to avoid being in such situations.

Take up new hobbies- Try a hobby like gardening, dancing, or doing puzzles, which will keep you busy and take your mind off of smoking, and help you quit tobacco.

Contemplate risks- For motivation, just think about the risks of smoking, which is not just limited to cancer, but also extends to the risk of infection and heart disorders and the longer than usual time that it takes for someone who smokes to heal from surgery. Quitting smoking is just one of the many ways people can boost their health.

The bottom line is you’ll do your heart a whole lot of good by quitting smoking, as when you breathe in cigarette smoke, the oxygenated blood that is distributed to the rest of the body becomes contaminated with the smoke’s chemicals. These chemicals can wreak havoc on your heart and blood vessels, which can lead to heart disease—the leading cause of all deaths in the United States.

To undergo CPR training at the AHA certified CPR Tampa in Palm Harbor, either register for a class online or contact us at 727-240-9404.
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