Heart Disease; What's Good for Your Heart

My mother died from heart disease. My doctor has also told me that my heart leaks some and skips beats. He does an echo gram every couple of years to check on things. My wife has been told that she has some calcification within her heart. As you can see, the heart is something that we are concerned with in our family. There is nothing like talking to your doctor and getting their advice on how to take care of your heart. But there are some things we are trying to do to keep our hearts healthy.One, fortunately we like fish and try to eat some a couple of times a week. Certain fish like salmon is high in omega-3 fatty acids. You've no doubt heard a lot about these and how they can reduce the risk of sudden death from a heart attack. Some people take omega-3 supplements but we don't. We try to eat other foods too besides fish that are either fortified with omega-3 or the body can turn into it - an example is walnuts.Two, we try to arrange our lives to reduce stress. Not all stress is bad and some is necessary in life. But in our hectic world, stress is epidemic. People try to limit stress in their lives in different ways. One thing we do is that we have learned to say no. There are so many good things to get involved in and it is hard to say no. But if you say yes to everything, you could do yourself in. And then you are no good to anyone. It is better to carefully choose what you will commit yourself to. Using traditional time management ideas, we have found that when you get more organized and get things done more efficiently, you often simple add more things onto your to-do list. Before long you are back where you started and overwhelmed. We found it better to limit what we say we are going to do. The result is less stress.Three, we try laugh as much as we can. This is actually another good way of reducing stress. How do we do this? For one, we don't watch as much news as we used to. The news is depressing for the most part. It is the exact opposite of laughter. Instead, when we watch television we watch a favorite sit com or some other funny program.