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February is American Heart Month, a time when we can all focus on our cardiovascular health.

How is your heart health? Your heart is roughly the size of a fist and sits in the middle of your chest, slightly to the left. It’s the muscle at the center of your circulation system, pumping blood around the body as your heart beats. This blood sends oxygen and nutrients to all parts of your body and carries away unwanted carbon dioxide and toxins.

The heart is our physical and emotional epicenter and it smiles when we are proactive about its care. Heart-healthy living is essential for those of us in the “Elderhood” society because we want to stay well as long as we can.

You might not give it much thought throughout the day, but the heart is working through the day for you. Your heart is the most important muscle in your body because it pumps blood and oxygen to all of your organs. When your heart does not get the proper care needed, serious problems can develop in the lining of the arteries which leads to plaque buildup.

Plaque is what leads to heart attacks and blockage of blood flow in the arteries. Know the conditions that affect your heart and the habits that can help prevent or manage them. Taking action will help you keep your ticker in shape.

To prevent heart disease, you can; eat healthy foods; get active, stay a healthy weight, quit smoking, and stay away from secondhand smoke and your heart will smile. The rainbow of colors of foods such as berries, green leafy vegetables, grain, and lean protein in moderation. Excessive flour and sugar and high fatty foods can be detrimental to the heart and brain.

Practice good dental hygiene, especially flossing your teeth daily. I floss after every meal. Annual physicals and maintenance checkups are crucial. Know your cholesterol levels, glucose levels (A1C), and blood pressure numbers. The heart thrives on water and loves to be exercised. Love your heart through tender and deliberate care.

The heart is also our emotional center. It is the barometer of how we face life and the world. How is your emotional and spiritual heart? Is it agitated and skipping beats due to stressful enemies of the heart? A heart’s arteries can also be clogged and eroded by villains such as guilt, anger, greed, and jealousy which can lead to the same physical diseases that erode the arteries.

Andy Stanley in his book “Enemies of the Heart,” spells out how you can break the stronghold of these emotions that control you. There is a solution and prescription for spiritual healing and unclogging those arteries.

I examine my heart on an ongoing basis to determine if surgical interventions are needed to excise any emotional or spiritual agents that may be hiding. Let’s make our hearts smile!

See my homepage (momentswithmaude.com) for more about me.