Get to Know Your Heart

Your heart is one of the hardest-working, most dependable organs in your body. During your lifetime, it will pump nearly 1.5 million barrels of blood, enough to fill 200 train tank cars!  It is your body’s built-in engine, working every second to consistently pump blood to fuel your organs with oxygen and nutrients, clear out waste, and keep everything flowing smoothly at a healthy rhythm and pressure. Working with a network of blood vessels and its own built-in electrical wiring to keep a steady rhythm, your heart quietly supports everything you do, from sleeping and breathing to running and laughing.

Know Your Numbers – “The Big Three”

High blood pressure, high cholesterol, and high glucose levels (diabetes) are often linked and together greatly increase heart disease risk. To keep this powerful organ working at its best, regular monitoring of a few key health numbers can make a big difference.

Key numbers to keep track of include:

• Blood pressure
• Cholesterol levels
• Blood glucose

While high blood pressure often shows no signs or symptoms, having your blood pressure checked regularly is important and easy to do. You can get screened at your doctor’s office and drugstores, or even check it yourself at home, using a home blood pressure monitor.

Recognizing the Warning Signs of a Heart Attack

Heart disease usually develops slowly over time. This means you may not notice it at first. Early signs of heart disease include:

• Chest pain
• Fatigue
• Shortness of breath
• Coughing
• Wheezing
• Swelling in the lower legs
• Aching or numbness in the legs
• Fast heart rate
• Uneven heart rate

Ways to Keep Your Heart Healthy & Happy

Maintain a Healthy Weight

Being overweight or obese can increase your risk of high blood pressure, which is why health providers often use body mass index (BMI) to assess whether your weight is in a healthy range. At your next visit, a physical therapist can review your BMI and discuss practical ways to reach a healthier weight.

Eating a Heart-Healthy Diet

A study published in Nutrients found that ketogenic diets significantly reduced insulin and fasting glucose, while raising beneficial HDL cholesterol, thereby lowering several primary risk factors of cardiovascular disease development.  A healthy ketogenic diet focuses on high-quality fats, moderate protein intake, and 7 to 10 cups of non-starchy vegetables daily, while avoiding added sugars and limiting carbohydrates to less than 50 grams a day. Foods like wild-caught fish, liver, extra-virgin olive oil, almonds, raw sauerkraut, and leafy greens contain important nutrients that help keep your blood vessels healthy, protect your cells, and support normal blood pressure. Refer to the updated Dietary Guidelines for Americans for healthy food options.

Music Moves Your Heart

Surprisingly, one of the easiest ways to support your heart may already be playing through your headphones. Your heartbeat changes and mimics the music you listen to. Research confirms that your heartbeat can indeed adapt to the tempo and intensity of the music you are listening to, with fast-paced, high-energy music tending to increase heart rate, while slower, relaxing music helps lower it. A healthy heart beats an average of 60–80 times per minute, and music can influence this rhythm. This phenomenon is driven by the part of your brain that processes sound, which sends signals to the part that controls automatic body functions, like heart rate and respiration. Music has also been shown to help with anxiety and getting enough sleep, which are also major driving factors for a healthy heart.

How Physical Therapy Supports Heart Health

Physical therapy isn’t just for recovering from injuries; it plays an important role in cardiovascular health, too.

A physical therapist can:

• Design safe, individualized exercise programs
• Help build endurance without overstraining your heart
• Improve mobility and balance so you can stay active
• Address pain or joint issues that limit movement
• Support recovery after cardiac events or surgery

For people with heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis, or a history of inactivity, physical therapy provides a structured, supervised movement routine that builds confidence while reducing risk.

More than half of all Americans are suffering from pain. However, many don’t even know that physical therapists are well equipped to not only treat pain but also its source. The goal of physical therapy is to correct your imbalances in posture, restore your motion and muscle strength, and recondition injured tissues to allow you to be pain-free in your daily activities. Physical therapists are biomechanical specialists. They find the source of your pain and fix it.

If you have heard of the profession of physical therapy. Maybe you have had a conversation with a friend about how physical therapy helped get rid of their back pain, or you might know someone who needed physical therapy after an injury. You might even have been treated by a physical therapist yourself. But have you ever wondered about physical therapists-who they are and what they do? Many people are familiar with physical therapists’ work helping patients with orthopedic problems, such as low back pain or knee surgeries, to reduce pain and regain function. Others may be aware of the treatment that physical therapists provide to assist patients recovering from a stroke, e.g. assisting them with recovering use of their limbs and walking again.

Maintaining an upright posture and moving your arms and legs to perform all sorts of tasks and activities is an essential component of your health. Most of us can learn to live with the various medical conditions that we may develop, but only if we are able to continue at our jobs, take care of our families, and enjoy important occasions with family and friends. All of these activities require the ability to move without difficulty or pain.

Because physical therapists are experts in movement and function, they do not confine their talents to treating people who are ill. A large part of a physical therapist’s program is directed at preventing injury, loss of movement, and even surgery. Physical therapists work as consultants in industrial settings to improve the design of the workplace and reduce the risk of workers overusing certain muscles or developing low back pain. They also provide services to athletes at all levels to screen for potential problems and institute preventive exercise programs. With the boom in the golf and fitness industries, a number of physical therapists are engaged in consulting with recreational golfers and fitness clubs to develop workouts that are safe and effective, especially for people who already know that they have a problem with their joints or their backs.

The cornerstones of physical therapist treatment are therapeutic exercise and functional training. In addition to “hands-on” care, physical therapists also educate patients to take care of themselves and to perform certain exercises on their own. Depending on the particular needs of a patient, physical therapists may also “mobilize” a joint (that is, perform certain types of movements at the end of your range of motion) or massage a muscle to promote proper movement and function. Physical therapists also use methods such as ultrasound (which uses high-frequency waves to produce heat), hot packs, and ice. Although other kinds of practitioners will offer some of these treatments as “physical therapy,” it’s important for you to know that physical therapy can only be provided by qualified physical therapists or by physical therapist assistants, who must complete a 2-year education program and who work only under the direction and supervision of physical therapists.

Most forms of physical therapy treatment are covered by your insurance, but the coverage will vary with each plan. Most states do not legally require patients to see their physicians before seeing a physical therapist. Most of the time all you have to do is ask your doctor if physical therapy is right for you.

CLICK ABOVE to hear the differences between physical therapy and other types of treatment.

For more information on a specific diagnosis or pain visit the PTandMe Injury Center.