Lifestyle factors cause most incidents of heart disease and diseases in the blood circulation, either wholly or partially. Bad lifestyle can cause blood vessels to be narrowed, high blood pressure and inflammatory processes in the circulatory system. These changes will themselves decrease the general condition and tissue health, and can cause more dramatic events like blod clots, heart infarction or stroke.



Here are some simple advices to avoid disease in the heart and blood vessels and to help regain good circulatory health if such disease already are present.

- Do not smoke or use any other types of nicotine sources. Smoking is perhaps the most potent cause of circulatory problems.

- Have some exercises at least every second day that make your heart work harder. Jogging, cycling, playing ball, swimming or other activities where you increase your energy consume are good for your blood circulation. The exercises should however be adjusted to your present health condition.

- Get enough sleep each 24 hours. All the sleep does not however need to occur during night. You can for example take out some of your need for sleep as a siesta in the middle of the day. 7 hours sleep seems to be the ideal for optimal circulatory health. Much more sleep seems to be bad for your blood circulation.

- Avoid a high amount of stress over a longer period. If there is something in your lifestyle or work that makes you stressed, you should make adjustments. Meditation is a good method to stress down.

- Decrease the amount of fat in your diet. Do not add much oil, butter or other types of fat to your food. Do not consume much fast-food or ready made food that often contain great amount of added fat.

-Avoid altogether chemically altered fat, so-called trans-fat. This type of fat is often found in margarine and is often added to many types of cookies. Avoid great amounts of saturated fat, as found in fat milk, fat diary products, coconut products and butter.

- Still you need some fat. The fat you mostly need are mono-unsaturated fat as found in olives, olive oil, rape oil, canola oil and almonds, omga-3-polyunsaturated fat found for example in fish, seafood and flax oil and omga-6-polyunsatyrated found in sunflower oil, soy oil, corn oil, sunflower seeds and many types of nuts.

- Much of the fat you still choose to add to your food should be oils with mono-unsaturated fat like olive oil, rape oil, almond oil or canola oil. Marine oils or flax oil can be added to get enough omega-3-fat. You can also use some soy oil, corn oils and other types of natural oils with a high content of omega-6-fat, but do not use too much of these to avoid over-consuming this type of fat.

- Eat some nuts, almonds or sunflower seeds several times each week, since these food types give you fat valuable for your circulatory health.

- Eat fish at least every second day. Use lean meat, lean poultry, mushrooms, seafood and lean diary products in the food you make.

- Consume a moderate amount of carbohydrates. Avoid adding great amounts of sugar to your food. Avoid consuming much sweet drinks, cookies and snacks with great amounts of sugar and other carbohydrates.

- Use carbohydrate sources that contain fibre and that let the carbohydrates be taken up over some time, for example full corn bread and cereals, beans, peas and fresh fruit.

- Eat vegetables and fruit to each meal in order to get enough vitamins, minerals, fibres and anti-oxidants. They should be raw or only gently cooked so that the content of nutrients is not washed out.

- Consume just a little amount of salt. Do not add great amount of salt to your food or do not eat great amounts of salty food. By hot conditions and by heavy bodily work you will however need some more salt.

- A moderate alcohol consume is good for your blood circulation, especially red wine, but over-drinking has the opposite effect.

- Avoid excessive eating. Eating too much is not good for your blood circulation even though you eat sound food.

- Reduce excessive weight. The advices depicted above will often over time normalize your weight. If this is not enough you should carry through a more specific weight reduction program.

- If you suffer from diabetes, this disease should be well controlled.

- Extra supplements of vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids and anti-oxidants may be useful. Also some herbal supplements containing adaptogenic factors can be useful, for example supplements based on ginseng or roseroot (Rhodiola rocea). Supplements are especially useful if it is difficult to achieve a wholly satisfactory diet, or you have extra stressful conditions in your life you cannot avoid.

The advices depicted above are not only good for your circulatory health, but will also help to avoid rheumatism, cancer and other types of diseases.