Cardiovascular health is of paramount importance, and most of us aren’t exactly in the dark about how to keep our hearts in good shape. The guidance is simple and well-circulated — eat right, exercise, manage stress, don’t smoke. Actually committing to enacting positive changes, on the other hand, is a bit more challenging.
If we’ve learned anything from interviewing experts on how to build positive habits, it’s that making something fun is often one of the best strategies for sticking with it. Additionally, research in the self-improvement realm points to the value of keeping goals realistic and creating specific action plans to achieve them.
So how do you make that broad advice for taking care of your ticker more specific, realistic, and fun? Glad you asked. With some inspiration from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, we put together a few ideas.
Note: Getting 150 minutes of moderate-intensive aerobic activity a week, eating a mostly Mediterranean diet, and abstaining from tobacco are all part of the gold standard approach for protecting your heart, as is being aware of your family history and risk factors. The following suggestions are intended to help you achieve that overall goal.
Make Watching TV More Active
If you’re one of those inspiring folks who doesn’t watch television, our hats off to you! If you’re a mere mortal like the rest of us, though, giving up tube time likely isn’t in the cards. Luckily, there are ways to make the pursuit more active. You could do what this writer did and purchase one of those viral steppers with the intent to use it nightly (and then promptly let it start gathering dust), or you could set an even more realistic, equipment-free goal, like doing jumping jacks or stretches at every commercial break.
To up the fun quotient a bit more, try creating a game for yourself wherein each time a person does something onscreen — for example, every time a contestant on The Bachelor says “I’m not here to make friends” — you get up and run in place for 1 minute. The possibilities are endless.
Start a Dedicated Group Chat With Like-Minded Pals
You may already have a few group chats going with friends, and if so, you probably encourage one another’s endeavors in it often. But it’s easy for that encouragement to get lost amid other topics of conversation, like kids’ achievements, pop culture, and politics. Consider, then, starting another thread with interested parties that’s solely for offering support when it comes to heart health.
In it, you might share things like exercise accomplishments or favorite hiking spots, while motivating each other to keep going and empathizing when things get tough. The chat and its members can also be adapted to focus on any area you’re trying to improve: drinking less, quitting smoking, getting serious about your sleep schedule. Per happiness researcher Gretchen Rubin, many people require external accountability to stay on track with goals — and no one can keep you honest like close friends and family.
Host a Recipe Exchange (or Start a Swapping Doc)
In the same vein as a group chat for accountability, hosting a recipe exchange can make eating healthy more fun (and take the pressure off figuring out what to make for dinner each night). It works like this: Every invitee finds a heart-healthy recipe to cook and bring with them. You all get to taste a variety of dishes and walk away with a handful of new recipes to try your hand at. If you make it a monthly tradition, you’ll never run out of meal ideas.
A simpler option that you can do with co-workers and acquaintances as well as close friends is starting a Google Doc or spreadsheet solely for swapping recipes. By commenting on dishes and sharing cooking stories as you try them, you’ll get to enjoy some heart-healthy socializing at the same time.
