September 29th is World Heart Day.
There was a time when heart diseases, heart attacks, high cholesterol were conditions that the old and ailing suffered from. But with changing times and modern lifestyle – dependency on junk food, less physical activity and erratic work hours – the young are equally at risk of heart diseases. ‘Younger people are more at risk of heart diseases due to the high-stress levels they are exposed to. Stress causes a lot of hormonal changes in the body, which in turn affects metabolism, leads to cholesterol build-up, plaque in arteries and eventually makes one prone to heart attacks,’ says Dr Ajit Menon, consultant cardiologist and cardiac surgeon, Wockhardt Hospital, Mumbai. Here are seven things you should not do when you are stressed.
While heart health should be your top priority if you want to live longer and healthy, you often miss the warning signs that your body sends to protect the organ before its too late. Here, Dr Menon lists some of the signs that should make you wary and pay a visit to your doctor.
#1 Extreme fatigue: Most people will brush off and attribute it to work pressure, lack of sleep or too much on their plate that robs peace of mind. But fatigue due to a weak heart is totally different. It refuses to go even if you bring balance to other aspects of your life. One thing that you should look for is if you get drained out by mid-day. If your energy reserves get over early on, chances are your heart is straining itself to pump blood to all parts of your body. It is the lack of oxygen that makes you tired so easily. Here are other reasons for extreme fatigue that you should not ignore.
#2 Swelling in legs: There can be a number of reasons for swelling in your legs, hand and fingers. However, if your heart fails to pump blood effectively, chances are blood can build-up in your veins and cause swelling. A sluggish heart also makes it difficult for the kidneys to remove waste and sodium from the blood that could lead to swelling in the extremities. However, swelling that happens due to a problem in the heart is usually accompanied by other symptoms such as fatigue, shortness of breath, etc. Here are more reasons to take swelling seriously.
#3 Chest pain: This is one of the most common and obvious signs of a troubled heart. While prolonged discomfort in the chest could also be a sign of a sudden heart attack, you should also be cautious if you get a chest pain often, especially due to sudden exertion like lifting weights or while sprinting to take a bus. Chest pain that warns you about an impending heart problem will go away after rest or when you lie down. But that’s more reason you should rush to your doctor once the pain subsides. Sometimes the pain might happen right in the middle of the night while you are asleep and go away when you wake up and sit or take a burp. Beware, this is a red flag. Here are 10 causes of chest pain that you need to know.
#4 Pain that extends to your left arm: While chest pain is usually considered a common warning sign, it is more dangerous when the pain radiates to your left arm rendering you immobile. This is also a classic symptom of a heart attack. Here are some unusual causes of heart attack that you need to know.
#5 Pain that extends to your jaws: Chest pain can also radiate up to your jaws and make it difficult for you to chew, smile or move your mouth. This isn’t a sign for you to oversleep and skip work, but one that should make you call the hospital immediately.
#6 Tired while walking: Do you get tired and breathless while walking just a few blocks or suffer from leg cramps when you try to walk even a few kilometers? Leg cramps could be a sign of peripheral arterial disease, the fatty buildup in leg arteries that is linked to heart diseases too. However, keeping a tab on how much you can walk at your regular pace is also a good parameter to judge your heart health. If you can’t even walk 500 meters without tiring, reach out for help.
#7 Shortness of breath: This is another classic symptom of heart trouble. If your heart isn’t pumping effectively, blood can collect in the veins and fluid can leak into the lungs that will make you exhausted and breathless soon. So beware if you feel short of breath climbing a flight of stairs or after hitting the gym or doing yoga. Here are seven causes of breathlessness that you didn’t know.
#8 Feeling dizzy: While there can be a lot of reasons why you feel dizzy, improper heart functions can be one of the causes leading to blood pressure issues that can make you go dizzy.
#9 Your heart beats loudly: This is scary and not normal even if your room has pin drop silence! Hearing your own heartbeats while trying to sleep might indicate that there is a faulty valve that could give rise to serious issues later.
#10 Indigestion: Never thought that digestion and heart health could be related? Well, they are. When your heart isn’t pumping enough blood, your stomach, and the digestive system doesn’t have enough blood to digest food, and that is reason enough for you to be wary of your heart health.
#11 Irregular heartbeats: Yes, they do indicate a problem in your heart, like a faulty valve.
#12 Excessive sweating: If you are sweating because of no obvious reason, this could indicate an underlying medical condition.
Image source: Shutterstock
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