Scenic break during a heart-pumping run today
Are you hardly running or heartily running? This is the question I asked today of my friendly viewers and listeners on Periscope, Snapchat, and on anchor. There is a difference and how we answer that question makes a huge difference in how healthy we are (the quality of our life) and how long we live (our longevity).
How does running help your heart health? First, running is activity and makes your heartbeat a little bit faster. The heart is a muscle and it needs to be flexed regularly just like our other muscles to be healthy. It’s use it or lose it when it comes to heart health. Secondly, running reduces stress. We all have way too much stress in our lives and it is a perpetual struggle for most of us to manage and reduce stress well. Running is a safe, easy way to reduce stress. Third, running is activity and helps us keep a lower blood pressure and pulse rate when we are resting. The heart is more relaxed when it gets frequent exercise. Cardiologists tell us that 95% of people with high blood pressure could lower it with lifestyle changes.
Running allows us to manage more of our health in a holistic way without needing the help or intervention of doctors and medicine as much. Some of us may still require medicine for health reasons. But many find that we require less medicine if we run more and are more active in general (even walking helps). And remember running with walk breaks is still running. Walk breaks during a run actually help reduce our heart rate so we can run more efficiently with less effort.
Later today I will be participating in a Twitter chat with Bryan Health on How Running Improves your Heart Health between 12-1pm Central time. If you are interested, follow the hashtag #bryanheart. A local cardiologist will be participating along with others interested in heart health. Please feel free to join us.
Please watch/listen to the scope on heart health and share it with someone you love. As Neil Diamond once sang: “Turn on your heartlight!” The healthy love you feel and show for someone’s heart could save a life! It could be your own! Run heartily and prosper!
Scenic sunrise during a heart-pumping dog run today
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