February is known as the month of love. All the stores are filled with red and pink, life-size stuffed animals, red roses, heart-shaped candy, and more! February is a time to tell those who are special to you how much you love them. But what about your own heart. I’m not talking about the mushy gushy love stuff. I’m talking about your actual beating heart that keeps you going day-to-day. Have you shown your own heart some love recently?

Start Today!

If not, now is a PERFECT time! February is National Heart Health Month!

Celebrate Heart Health Month

This month is all about focusing on ways that you can develop healthy lifestyle habits to prevent heart disease. Focusing on Heart Health and education about heart health plays such an important role in the prevention of developing cardiovascular disease. Research shows that coming together to support a cause results in much better outcomes. Learning about heart health is particularly important because heart disease is the number one killer in America for both Women and Men.

Becoming Heart Smart

There are simple ways that you can begin your journey to becoming Heart Smart. If the following suggestions aren’t quite enough to fill your newfound thirst for taking care of your heart, check out these other tips for a healthy heart.

Get an Annual Checkup

1. The thing about Heart Disease is that it is not a specific disease. Heart Disease is a broad term used to describe a number of diseases that can affect your heart and in some cases your blood vessels.
2. There are other common risk factors for heart disease.
   • Age
   • Blood Pressure
   • Diabetes
   • Diet
   • Gender
   • Genetics
   • Dental Hygiene
   • Lack of Exercise
   • Obesity
   • Smoking
   • Stress
3. Talk to your doctor to understand your risk for heart disease and what you can do to love your heart!

Get Enough Sleep

1. Research has shown that lack of/poor sleep is contributed to heart disease.
2. Poor sleep has been linked to
   1. high blood pressure
   2. can make it difficult to lose weight
   3. may make you less likely to want to exercise.

Gain Control of Stress

1. Stress, especially chronic stress can lead to many other unwanted health concerns and one of those being heart disease.
2. Stress can lead to behaviors and factors that impact heart disease, such as
   • high blood pressure
   • high cholesterol
   • inactivity
   • overeating.
3. There are many different ways that you can take control of your stress.
4. If you are someone who is dealing with a lot of stress in your life, please reach out to us so we may better help you to gain control of the stress in your life.
5. We understand that right now is a very different year for so many of us and stress has been unavoidable in so many ways.
6. But there are so many ways to relieve the stress so that it does not take over and lead to health concerns down the road.

Find a Health Partner

1. There are so many studies that show having someone to keep you accountable is what will make the difference.
2. You may feel motivated to start a lot of these recommendations I may have; however, 3 days from now, the motivation is no longer there, and you fall off again.
3. Having a friend or coach to help guide you and get you back on track can really be the difference in seeing your goals.
4. Let Pharmacy Solutions be that accountability partner for you!

This February, don’t forget to show your own heart some love with some of these heart-healthy supplements!