Lowering Cholesterol by Reducing Stress

Stress has become a part of our daily lives. Many of us are in a rush to get to work and when we are there we are pushed to meet quotas and/or goals. We want a raise in salary and we undergo more stress. Life for us has become stressful.

The risk factors for heart disease are: Age (risk increases with age), Family history (if your parents suffer with heart disease you probably will also), Smoking (a definite killer, High blood pressure, Being overweight, Physical Inactivity, and Diabetes.

It always strikes me as strange that stress is not classified as one of the heart-disease risk factors. Many heart doctors point out that stress can trigger a heart attack. If one undergoes an emotionally traumatic event, and that person has plaque buildup in his or her arteries, part of that plaque may break free and cause a clog resulting in the death of heart muscle and a consequent heart attack.

So how we deal with stress is important. Many people use physical exercise to alleviate stress. Thirty minutes or more a day of good, heart-beating aerobic activity for five or more days a week will strengthen the heart and the circulatory system. Remember to check with your doctor first before starting an exercise program.

Regular and continuous exercise will lower the effects of at least two risk factors such as being overweight and high blood cholesterol. The more calories you will burn as a result of exercising will reduce your weight. And exercise has been shown to raise HDL good cholesterol levels and thereby lower total cholesterol.

Meditation by itself or in conjunction with physical exercise has been shown to reduce stress. There are many books that can teach you how to meditate properly and reduce the stress of everyday living.

Good personal relationships help to reduce stress. The support one draws from having good relationships cannot be overestimated. Voicing and sharing stressful problems with others can be mentally helpful. Keeping it all bottled up inside will only feed the beast. It has been stated that developing strong personal ties reduces the chances of developing heart disease. Opening up and expressing ones feelings to a trusted friend will do a lot to defuse the stress bomb that may be growing inside of you.

Other things to do to manage stress:

Keep a positive attitude - negativity only leads to more depressing feelings. Warm fuzzy feelings are good for you - try to generate them.

Praise yourself - accentuate the positive things, the successful things you do. Get high on these successes and stay there for days.

Accept what you cannot change. You can't fight city hall as the saying goes. Banging ones head against a stone wall does no one any good. Find a positive way of dealing with the situation. Perhaps finding a new job would be better for you.

Practice relaxation skills. Laugh as much as you can. For periods of time every day, push aside stress and just relax. Talk and think of other things. It's a big world with many wonderful things going on.

If you harbor hostility, find help. Hostility feeds stress, makes it worse helps it to achieve higher, world-record, explosive levels. Curmudgeons are just walking time bombs. If a person is so angry that he or she is always ready to fight, just imagine how high that person's blood pressure must be - all the time. Seek help to dissolve hostile feelings.

Stress can be managed. It only takes a positive approach to dealing with it. The result will be a lowering of your cholesterol.

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