World Heart Day is in September. And what better way to celebrate it than by doing a little more to keep our tickers in shape?

By maintaining (or making) a few simple changes to your lifestyle, you can reduce your chances of developing heart disease, and lead a more comfortable, happier, and possible longer life. And even if there is a history of heart disease in your family, there are definitely means of prevention. Here’s everything you need to know about the art of keeping your heart healthy.

1. Half an Hour of Exercise on Most Days

Even if you can’t manage every day, try to get some exercise most days of the week. Daily or at least regular exercise has been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease. This is even more effective if the physical activity is combined with other lifestyle measures, such as staying at a healthy weight and adhering to a healthy diet.

Here’s why physical activity makes such a difference: it significantly lessens the risk of developing various conditions that could cause heart strain, including cholesterol problems, high blood pressure, and diabetes. You don’t even have to engage in a strenuous exercise; just stay active.

2. A Heart-Friendly Diet

Although the Mediterranean diet and the DASH eating plan have been known to be beneficial for Heart Disease, pioneering studies suggest that a low-fat plant based diet are most effective in preventing heart disease and even improve symptoms for patients with existing Heart Disease. You usually can’t go wrong with a diet that is rich in whole grains and fruits and veggies. You should also include beans, and other low-fat plant protein sources. It is a very prudent idea to limit your intake of certain kinds of fats, particularly trans fats as well saturated fats.

You should avoid trans fats altogether, and try to keep saturated fats to less than one tenth of your daily calorie intake. Here’s something that might help: if the label contains the phrase ‘partially hydrogenated’, then that means it contains trans fats.

3. Maintaining Healthy Sleeping Habits

Something that a lot of people either don’t know or don’t pay much attention to is that sleep deprivation has effects that is far more significant than just making you yawn all day. It can actually cause major health problems, and individuals who get less sleep than they need are more prone to high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, depressive disorders, and heart attacks. This is not an appealing list. Late night comedy shows are not that alluring, not even when Leno was still on!

Adults need anywhere between seven and nine hours of sleep every day. Here’s a rule of thumb to see if you’re getting enough sleep: if you struggle to get out of bed in the morning and keeping hitting snooze on your alarm, then you need more rest. You’ll know you’re sleeping enough when you wake up, feeling great, without needing the alarm at all. Start making sleep a priority, and you’ll start seeing the positive difference very soon.

Written by Benjamin Roussey for bodono.

Benjamin Roussey is from Sacramento, CA. He has two master’s degrees and served four years in the US Navy. His bachelor’s degree is from CSUS (1999) where he was on a baseball pitching scholarship. He has an MBA in Global Management from the Univ. of Phoenix (2006) where he attributes his writing prowess. He has worked everywhere from small businesses to large corporations, and also for public agencies. He has lived in Korea and Saudi Arabia where he was an ESL instructor. He misses Saudi food and living in Korea. Benjamin has a tremendous work ethic and is quite focused. Now he writes professionally for several clients that covers one sector of our economy to another. Currently he lives in the Phoenix area after living in Cabo San Lucas, MX for 3 years. He enjoys sports, movies, reading, and current events when he is not working online: www.infinista.com.