A Mom’s Guide To Heart Health Month – Tips, Information, Thoughts

As many of you may already know, February is heart health month. And although I’ve always been passionate about heart health, and health in general, this year it means a bit more to me. Because, as I discussed in a recent update post, I actually had a major heart-related health scare in January of this year.

You can read the linked post for all the details. But in summary, I thought I was having a heart attack. So I called 911 and went to the hospital, there I was told that I wasn’t in an active heart attack and my symptoms were put off as anxiety and muscle pain. I’ve struggled with muscle pain for many years, and I know the difference…

Plus, my family was still very concerned so I ended up going to a heart hospital in a bigger city about two hours from me. There I was told that, although I hadn’t been having a heart attack, I was suffering from AFib attacks. Thankfully, these have now been resolved through stress management and balancing my electrolytes (which we’ll talk about later).

But the entire experience reminded me of the fact that women’s heart health is often underestimated, incorrectly treated, and misunderstood. So, in honor of heart health month, I want to talk about it today.

Heart Health Month Basics

Let’s start by discussing some statistics that make it very clear just how important heart health month is…

• Almost half of the adults residing in the United States have high blood pressure.
• For men and women in the United States, heart disease is the leading cause of death.
• Tragically, almost 700k people die from heart disease every year, in the US alone. That’s essentially 1 in 5 people that pass away.
• Someone dies from cardiovascular disease approximately every 33 seconds. And someone has a heart attack around every 40 seconds.

Heart health is not something you want to mess around with! And contrary to popular belief, heart problems aren’t always obvious. In fact, according to this article by the CDC, 1 in 5 heart attacks are silent. And certain groups of people are even more likely to be put off by medical professionals when it comes to heart health, such as women and minorities.

Heart Health Issues For Women

Now, for women, heart health can be even more complex and sometimes more dangerous as well. In fact, women are more likely to die from a heart attack (and within a year of a heart attack) than men. Despite men having more heart attacks on average.

Women’s heart health also isn’t taken as seriously. For reasons such as…

Misconceptions –

Many people associate heart attacks (and heart issues in general) more with men than women. In fact, even though heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women, only about 56% of women actually know that.

That’s a problem, because it means they’re less likely to seek out treatment. And another fun fact for you… Men’s median time of seeking medical treatment after a heart attack is about 16 hours, whereas women’s median time is 54 hours…

Confusion Around Symptoms –

Women can have different heart attack symptoms than men, such as nausea or back pain. And many women put off those symptoms as something else, since they aren’t as widely accepted as heart attack symptoms.

But on the flipside, people who are aware of these alternative symptoms are under the impression that women always experience them instead of the more traditional ones like chest pain. This is also incorrect! Women can have the same symptoms as men, symptoms only associated with women, or a combination of the two.

A Lack of Research –

Women’s heart health is researched far less than men’s, so not only are there gaps in data… But a lot male heart health information is repackaged and circulated as info on women’s heart health as well. Some of this is correct since heart health does work somewhat the same in everyone, but much of it might not be completely accurate.

And it doesn’t do a thing to address risk factors that are specific to women! Such as hormones, birth control, and autoimmune diseases that are more prevalent in females.

A Lack of Education –

The lack of research on women’s heart health, mixed with it being consistently underestimated, leads to people knowing less about it as the general public. And this is part of the reason why misconceptions like I listed above are so prevalent.

It’s my hope, that we may witness more education on this topic in the following years. But in case we don’t start to see widespread talk about this topic for a while… I want to emphasize the importance of taking things into your own hands and researching all you can about health issues that could affect you!

Extra Note – I think it’s worth mentioning that women’s heart health isn’t just underestimated by the general public. It happens in medical settings as well, with women being overall more likely to be incorrectly treated, misdiagnosed, not taken seriously, and sent back home with serious heart issues than men.

Heart Health Tips

There are tons of resources online that can tell you more about how to live a heart healthy life, but I want to quickly go over some basics and a few things that I think aren’t talked about enough!

Exercise –

Adequate exercise is essential for heart health, but this doesn’t have to mean spending hours at the gym if that isn’t feasible for you. Current guidelines recommend that you get around 150 minutes of moderate exercise (exercise that gets your heartrate up, without impacting your ability to speak) per week. Or 75 minutes of vigorous activity per week if you can safely manage that.

Personally, I reach this goal by briskly walking for about half an hour every day while I’m on the phone. But do whatever works for you!

Diet –

Watching what you eat is also important. And this obviously involves avoiding foods that harm your heart as much as possible, while also incorporating heart healthy foods into your diet! Here are a few examples!

Foods To Avoid

• Anything with saturated fats: bacon, fried foods, hot dogs, etc…
• Anything that has too much sodium: tv dinners, processed foods, instant mixes, etc…
• Anything with added sugars: sodas, candy, etc…

Foods To Eat More Of

• Anything with healthy fats: nuts, seeds, olive oil, etc…
• Anything with vegetables: spinach, broccoli, carrots, etc…
• Anything with lean protein: poultry, fish, beans, etc…

Sleep –

Adults need an average of seven hours of sleep per night minimum, or they’re at a higher risk of a variety of health issues. Including high blood pressure and heart attacks! But many people actually don’t know that, which makes getting enough sleep an underrated part of living a heart healthy life.

Electrolytes And Vitamins –

And lastly, I want to take some time to talk about electrolytes and vitamins. Since it’s something I recently learned about, while dealing with my own heart health journey.

Something I didn’t know before, but I do now… Is that electrolyte imbalances can cause serious heart problems, and can even lead to cardiac arrest! And vitamin B deficiencies can cause similar issues, like coronary disease.

So it’s important to get regular blood work done, in order to check these things. Because it’s not something that a lot of doctors talk about, and a lot of people are completely unaware they’re imbalanced.

Thankfully, you can fix electrolyte imbalances with dietary changes and supplementation. But it does require somewhat of a plan, because becoming too high in electrolytes can have the same effect as being too low. And the same can be said for vitamin deficiencies.

Final Thoughts

I’m aware that this post only scratched the surface of heart health for women, but I hope you were able to learn something from it! And I hope, if nothing else, it’s reminded you of just how seriously you should take your heart health. Even if nobody else seems to be…