8 Secrets to Healthy Blood for Better Heart Health

Healthy blood is essential for a healthy body. Follow these steps to ensure your blood is in the best condition possible.

1. Get tested. At your next medical examination, ask your doctor to check you for inflammation by monitoring your CRP and fibrinogen levels. 

2. Quit smoking. Smoking causes sludgy, viscous, and inflamed blood. Stopping smoking can improve your heart health, tremendously.

3. Eat an anti-inflammatory diet. First and foremost, keep your sweets under control. Excess sugar in the diet is a recipe for inflammatory disaster. Sugar pushes insulin levels high, irritates blood vessel linings, promotes high blood pressure, perpetuates metabolic syndrome, and oxidizes red blood cells. Second, avoid trans fats—partially hydrogenated oils used in processed and fried foods—that also kindle inflammatory reactions in the body.
 
4. Relax! Anger and stress stoke the flames of inflammation in the arteries and blood. Moderate your emotions healthily. For sure, that’s easier said than done, especially in these stressful times. But meditation, yoga, and T’ai chi can help you do that, along with routine moderate exercise. Find the method that works for you, and stick with it.

5. Hydrate. Proper hydration helps to keep your blood thin. Markedly dehydrated people have sludgy blood. Make sure you always drink plenty of water. The most common recommendation is to drink eight 8-oz. glasses of water daily, but you should let your body be your guide.

6. Donate blood. If you are a male, or a postmenopausal woman, donate blood from time to time. Your act of biological charity also serves to reduce your blood volume, and promotes healthy viscosity.

7. Get regular exercise. Add cardiovascular training and weight-bearing exercise to your fitness routine. Exercise helps keep all systems healthy. It promotes beneficial blood viscosity and opens up capillaries for ideal blood flow.

8. Get grounded. Earthing’s benefits for circulatory health are enormous. Red blood cells change from thick and clumping to thin and flowing within an hour of individuals becoming grounded. Blood pressure levels come down and arrhythmias ebb.

Now it’s your turn: Which of these healthy habits do you practice?

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