Vital to Health and Wellness Blog

Heart Disease and Smoking
If you are reading this, I probably don’t need to tell you that tobacco is not healthy.  In addition to increasing one’s risk of several lung problems including lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, smoking increases plaque buildup in the arteries.  Think of your arteries like a garden hose. When your hose is clogged with dirt or damaged, the water can’t get through very well. For more information on Smoking and Your Heart, click here. But, instead of preaching about what you probably already know, I’m going to tell you about several free resources to help you quit smoking. Think about it like a journey.  If you are driving your car from NY to FL you will have to stop for gas, you may get stuck behind traffic, experience bad weather or have to stop because you are tired. On your journey to quit smoking, perseverance is key. If you quit then start back, just keep your eyes on the goal and you will succeed for good!

Great resources:
• Smokefree.gov
• American Cancer Society
• AHRQ
• You Can Quit Smoking

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Step Up Your Fitness
Whatever you are doing now to stay physically fit, I want you to step it up to the next level. Keep track of your exercise program online or on a calendar (a wall calendar that you can see daily works well) and find a way to increase the intensity or duration of some of your exercise sessions or, just add different forms of exercise to your routine (or try all three!).

If you’d like to increase the intensity of some of your exercise sessions, try measuring your Rating of Perceived Exertion (how hard you feel like you are working), measure your heart rate or wear a heart rate monitor so you can see changes in heart rate throughout exercise. To bump up the intensity, train with someone who can help push you to work harder or try intervals.

If you want to focus on duration first, increase this up to 10% per week. So, if you typically walk 10 miles over the course of a week, bump this up to 11 miles next week.  And finally, adding different forms of exercise is easy!  Try a local rock climbing gym, go for a hike (with hills of course), take tennis lessons or rent a bike for a day.  By altering the exercises you are doing, you’ll stay motivated and workout different muscles with each different form of exercise.