Healthy Lifestyle
Across Northern Ontario, our aim is to reduce heart diseases by educating people
Sleep
Getting good sleep isn’t just important for your energy levels—it is critical for your heart health, too. Learn how sleep is connected to heart health.
Sleep is not a luxury. It is critical to good health. Sleep helps your body repair itself. Getting enough good sleep also helps you function normally during the day.
How much sleep do I need?
Most adults need at least 7 hours of sleep each night. However, more than one in three American adults say they don’t get the recommended amount of sleep. While this may be fine for a day or two, not getting enough sleep over time can lead to serious health problems—and make certain health problems worse.
Mental Health and Well-Being
For years, doctors thought the connection between mental health and heart health was strictly behavioral – such as the person who is feeling down seeking relief from smoking, drinking or eating fatty foods.
That thinking has started to change. Research shows there could be physiological connections, too. The biological and chemical factors that trigger mental health issues also could influence heart disease.
Stress Management
There is no single right way to cope with stress. To cope with your own stress, you need to understand what causes you to feel stress and how to control how you respond to stress.
Take the pressure off, reduce your stress
Your first line of defense is to identify your stressors and try to remove them from your life, if possible. For example, you might be able to change your job, alter your schedule or avoid certain people who cause you stress.
One way to avoid stress is to make sure you’re not setting unrealistic goals for yourself. If your goals are too difficult to achieve, you won’t achieve them and you’ll feel stress.
Quit Smoking
Health Canada states that smoking increases the risk of coronary heart disease, the most common condition of heart disease. Smokers are up to 4 times more likely to have a sudden cardiac death than are non-smokers. Quitting smoking will reduce your risk of coronary disease. Within a year, the risk is reduced by about half.
There are several resources available in Thunder Bay to help you quit smoking.