Women can prevent cardiovascular disease by making smart lifestyle choices, being proactive about diet and exercise, and properly managing stress. Watch cardiologist Suzanne Steinbaum, DO, discuss what women can do to ensure a healthy heart for life.
Women today are living a completely different life than they did a generation ago. We are so lucky to have broken down the walls and really have had the rights and the ability to go into the workforce, but you know what? We're juggling a lot. Being moms, being at work, being wives and sisters and daughters and mothers and all of these roles, it really can affect our hearts.
So as women as early as possible we need to take control of all of the stress, and managing it is so important. How we choose to live our lives and how we choose to perceive it is really critical. Whether or not we wake up everyday and we're happy to start the day, or if we look at a glass half full or half empty, it matters.
So who you are today, makes a difference in who you're going to be 20 years from now. I say take control of your life. Get behind the steering wheel and drive it, and decide who you want to be, health-wise and heart-wise. It's really about managing your life, from diet, to exercise, to stress management and figuring it out, because you're going to continue to juggle all those balls for a much longer time, and taking care of yourself is the most important.
If you don't put yourself first, you're never going to be able to do it.
Suzanne Steinbaum, MD, is an attending cardiologist and the director of Women and Heart Disease of Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. She is the author of Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum's Heart Book: Every Woman's Guide to a Heart Healthy Life.
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