The world's leading cause of death is heart disease, with high cholesterol linked to an increased risk of developing this condition. Most people think about foods to avoid when they want to lower their cholesterol. However, there are also certain foods that are heart-healthy low cholesterol foods. 

Consider these heart-healthy foods:

 1. Legumes

 Legumes include food such as beans, soybeans, peas, and lentils. They contain lots of fiber, protein, and minerals. Consider this healthy idea: replace refined grains and processed meat with legumes and you can lower your risk of developing heart disease. 

2. Avocados

These fruits are a rich source of monounsaturated fats and fiber, both of which can help lower bad cholesterol (LDL) and raise good cholesterol levels (HDL). 

3. Nuts

 Nuts such as almonds and walnuts are full of monounsaturated fats. They also contain phytosterols, a plant compound that can help lower cholesterol. It does this by blocking its absorption in your intestines. Almonds are a good source of L-arginine, which is an amino acid that helps regulate your blood pressure. Walnuts contain omega-3 fatty acids, which are polyunsaturated fats linked to good heart health. 

4. Fatty fish

 Fatty fish like salmon contain omega-3 fatty acids that can increase good cholesterol, which will help to lower inflammation and also reduce the risk of suffering a stroke. It is also believed that fish protein has certain peptides that help to protect your heart.

5. Whole grains 

Whole grains, in particular oats and barley, have been shown to lower the risk of heart disease with both found to contain beta-glucan, a soluble fiber that helps lower cholesterol. 

6. Fruits and berries

These are another source of soluble fiber, which can lower cholesterol. Fruit is also a good source of bioactive compounds that contain various antioxidants with anti-inflammatory benefits. These can help prevent heart disease and other chronic diseases.

 7. Dark chocolate

The main ingredient in dark chocolate, cocoa, has been proven to lower bad cholesterol. It can also reduce blood pressure too. The one issue with chocolate is that it is high in added sugar, which can have a negative impact on your heart health. This is why it’s healthier to opt for dark chocolate with a cocoa content above 75%.

 8. Garlic

Garlic contains numerous healthy plant compounds, which include allicin. Research has found that garlic can help reduce cholesterol and may help to lower blood pressure in people who currently have high blood pressure.

 9. Vegetables

Vegetables are a good source of fiber and antioxidants. They are also low in calories, so they’re also essential if you are looking to keep slim and healthy. 

Mindfulness is about paying attention to what you are feeling and sensing in the moment. Think of it as taking the time to stop and smell the roses. It’s about cutting out the distractions and noise in your mind and choosing to focus on what is happening around you.

Benefits of Meditation

There are some big benefits to practicing mindfulness. Top among them is of course feeling less stressed. One of the reasons we feel stressed is because we are pulled in many different directions and are constantly bombarded by new information, media, and demands.

 Practicing mindfulness allows you to tune out the noise and give your mind a break. This in turn will help you relieve stress. Making mindfulness part of your daily routine can help you start to permanently reduce stress.

Practicing mindfulness can also help with anxiety, depression, and insomnia.

Mindfulness meditation has also been shown to help with improving attention span and reducing work burnout.

Simple Ways of Practicing Mindfulness

Practicing mindfulness doesn’t have to be hard or complicated. You don’t have to get into any long mindfulness meditations unless you want to. You can start with some very easy and simple things. 

Let’s take mindful eating for example. Instead of eating in front of the TV or looking at your phone while eating a meal or munching on a snack, try this instead. Get out a plate and put your food on it. Arrange the food or snack. Sit down at the table and put your phone away. Focus on the food. What does it look like? What does it smell like? How does it taste? Savor each bite and pay attention to how your body is starting to react. Not only is it a great way to destress, but you’ll also find you’ll get a lot more out of each meal and this type of eating tends to keep you from overindulging.

Another great way to practice mindfulness is with mindfulness meditation. Focus on your breathing and notice how the air rushes in and out of your lungs, what it feels like to have it move in through your nose and out through your mouth. Pay attention to the rise and fall of your abdomen.

You can practice mindfulness anytime, anywhere. The hardest part is remembering to do it. Create one or two small habits for yourself that focus on mindfulness. Maybe it’s a simple meditation in the morning, or really paying attention to that first cup of coffee. Maybe it’s going for a stroll after dinner by yourself where you can practice being mindful of your surroundings and the beauty you encounter. 

Give it a try and start to reap the many short and long-term benefits of practicing mindfulness.

 Are you feeling stressed? I’d be surprised if you weren’t. Between the growing demands of our jobs, raising a family while working full-time, and the increasing need to stay connected all day every day, most of us feel stressed out more often than we like to admit. Add to it a chronic lack of sleep and exercise and you have a recipe for disaster. Stress kills and that’s no joke. Let’s look at some of the worst negative side effects of stress and what you can do to stress less and relax more.

Stress will cause your blood pressure to rise. You’ve experienced this when you found yourself hot and with a raging headache when you were in a particularly stressful situation. Feeling that way from time to time is no big deal. The real danger is in the lower-level stress we all feel on a daily basis. It can lead to hypertension and a higher risk of suffering from a heart attack or stroke.

Are you ready to actively do something to reduce stress on a daily basis? If not, I would like to encourage you to pick up and develop a daily habit that helps you accomplish just that. Stress not only reduces your quality of life; it can also negatively affect your health. There’s a reason why they say stress kills. Start doing something about it and embrace life to the fullest with some of these simple techniques that help you stress less. 

Review and Release - Stop Trying to Do All the Things 

One of the main reasons why we are so much more stressed than let’s say our grandparents were, is because we are taking on a lot more. We have families where each partner is working a full-time job and possibly a side hustle as well to make ends meet financially. That leaves all the hard work of keeping house and raising a family, which needs to be done during “off” hours. Most of us no longer mentally clock out at the end of the workday. Instead, we take our work home and are reachable at all hours via text message or email. Add to that the stress constant connectivity and social media create and it’s no wonder we’re more stressed than ever.

 It’s time to stop trying to do all the things all the time and focus on reducing stress in your life. Start by reviewing everything you do on a given day. A great tool for this is a time log. Keep a simple piece of paper or a small notebook with you at all times. Set an alert on your phone to go off every 30 minutes (during waking hours), and quickly jot down what you’re doing. Be brutally honest. No one else needs to see this log and you can burn it after you’re done. After a week of logging, you get a pretty good idea of where you spend your time and mental energy.

Now comes the fun part. Look through your data and decide what you can let go of. What can you stop doing? Open up some time for yourself to exercise, meditate, or take a nap so you can catch up on much-needed sleep.

Next, it’s time to review and release all those worries, questions, and “should-dos” that are stressing you out. Get out another sheet of paper or two and start to write down anything and everything on your mind. All the stuff you’ve been thinking about doing. All the stuff that’s been worrying you. Get it all out. Walk away for a few hours and then come back to your list. 

Cross out as much as you can. Things that are out of your control and you decide to mentally release. Tasks that you feel like you should do, that you really don’t need to do. Then rewrite what’s left on two different lists. One will be things you can do, or have someone else do for you. This will become your master to-do list for the next few months. The other is a list of worries or concerns. Notice how much smaller and shorter those lists are and how much lighter you feel just getting it all out of your head.

Start Meditating

One of the best tools for reducing stress is meditation. You can start with a simple breathing meditation by getting comfortable in a quiet spot and focusing on relaxing and thinking about nothing but your breath. From there, give some of the free guided meditations a try. There are even some wonderful apps out there that turn your smartphone into your favorite new meditation device. Set aside a few minutes each day to meditate and watch the stress melt away. 

Keep a Journal 

This one may surprise you. A journal is an effective tool to help you worry and stress less. The simple act of writing about what’s on your mind can be incredibly freeing. A journal is also a great tool to help you look back and figure out what’s triggering or causing periods of high stress. This is valuable information to have since you can’t work towards reducing or eliminating a trigger if you don’t know what it is. 

Go for A Walk 

Another simple, but very powerful technique is to go for a walk. Get outside if possible, but if that’s not a good option, hop on a treadmill or pace around your house. It doesn’t take a lot of walking before you start to see the benefits. If you only have ten minutes, walk. If you have an hour lunch break, walk for 20 minutes and spend the rest of the time relaxing and eating. Make it work and get in the habit of walking regularly. 

Sleep

 Do you know what one of the most effective ways to de-stress is? It’s sleeping. Yes, exercise is great and meditation is a wonderful tool, but the best thing you can do to stress less on a regular basis is to get a goodnight's sleep.

You already know this is true. Think about how much harder your job and your life, in general, feel after a night when you were up with the kids, or working until four in the morning to finish an important project. You get grumpy, it’s harder to focus, and every little problem suddenly becomes insurmountable. You feel a lot more stressed throughout the day and it only gets worse if you end up sleeping poorly for several days in a row.

Thankfully there are a lot of things you can do to improve both the quantity and quality of sleep you get. Before you tell yourself that you can’t afford to sleep more, realize that not focusing on sleep will cause you to be less focused and productive. You’ll actually get more done by investing time into a good-night sleep.

Start by establishing a bedtime routine. Try to go to bed at the same time every night, even on the weekends. It helps your body get into a rhythm that makes falling asleep and staying asleep easier. Cut distractions from your bedroom. That means leaving your phone in the living room if possible or silent.

Turn off the lights and have a good look around your bedroom. Are there any small indicator lights or blinking lights? Try to remove them if possible. Listen for any sounds from electronics and the likes. Make your bedroom a calm, quiet, and dark place of rest.

Last but not least, watch your screen time at night. Our eyes and the way they process light, including the light waves from our screens have a big impact on how alert the body is. One of the worst habits we’ve all developed is to look at our phones while trying to go to sleep. Instead, focus on calming activities like reading, talking with your partner, or meditating for an hour before going to sleep. Reduce screen time for a few hours before bed or at the least invest in blue light filtered glasses or install an app that changes your display at night.

Read 3 apps that can help you sleep better at night.

Hug 

That’s right. Something as simple as a hug can help you relax and fight stress. Make sure the hug is genuine on both sides and for best results, hold the embrace for at least twenty seconds. You’ll start to feel calm and those endorphins will flood your system. Don’t have anyone around to hug at the moment? Laughing out loud is pretty powerful too. Turn on a fun comedy that leaves you in stitches. 

Clean Up Your Diet 

Last but not least, take a look at what you’re putting into your mouth. A clean diet of mostly whole foods that’s low in sugars and preservatives will nourish your body and fight much of the damage stress causes. It will also help you feel calmer and more in control. Start making some small changes and see if you don’t start to feel better. 

What is cholesterol?

Cholesterol is a waxy chemical substance found in every cell of the body. It is a fat-like substance that moves in the blood. The liver produces about 80% of the cholesterol in the body. We can also get it from food. Cholesterol is only found in foods that come from animals like meat, poultry, fish, eggs, and dairy products.

The liver regulates the cholesterol in the blood. After a meal, cholesterol in the meal is absorbed in the small intestine, metabolized, and stored in the liver. The liver secretes cholesterol as the body needs it.

What is the role of cholesterol in the body?

Cholesterol performs many vital functions in the body. It is found in all the cell membranes of the body. Cell membranes are layers that protect the contents of the cell by acting as a gatekeeper to what things can enter or leave the cell. Cholesterol is also needed to make Vitamin D and some hormones like estrogen and testosterone.

Types of cholesterol

Cholesterol is transported in the blood by particles called lipoproteins. There are three types of lipoproteins that are categorized based on how much protein there is in relation to cholesterol. 

Low-Density Lipoprotein

This is typically called "bad" cholesterol. It has more cholesterol than protein. This lipoprotein transports cholesterol throughout the body. They accumulate in the arteries clogging them and making them hard and stiff.

High levels of LDL can increase the risk of heart disease, stroke, and peripheral artery disease by forming cholesterol plaques on the walls of the arteries. As the plaques continue to build up, they narrow the arteries. This is called arteriosclerosis. This will also cause the blood flow to decrease. 

If the plaque ruptures, this can cause a blood clot to form. This blood clot can prevent blood flow. If this clot occurs in any coronary arteries in the heart, it can cause a heart attack or myocardial infarction.

High-Density Lipoprotein

This is called good cholesterol. This is made up of higher levels of protein and lower levels of cholesterol. HDL picks up excess cholesterol and takes it back to the liver. Higher levels of HDL reduces the risk of heart disease. 

Very Low-Density Lipoprotein

These are particles in the body that carry triglycerides. Triglycerides are important because most of the fat in the body exists as triglycerides. VLDL contains even lower levels of protein than LDL and has been associated with cholesterol plaque build-up.

How to test your cholesterol levels

Cholesterol levels are tested with a blood test. In most cases, you will need to fast for 12 hours before drawing blood for the test.

Accepted cholesterol levels

How to lower cholesterol by diet

Reduce saturated fats

Saturated fats are mainly found in animal foods, though a few plant foods are also high in saturated fats like coconut oil, palm oil, and palm kernel oil. Some sources of saturated fat are meat products (sausage, bacon, meat, hamburgers), whole and reduced-fat milk, butter and dairies desserts, pizza, cheese, and cookies.

The American Heart Association recommends limiting saturated fats to no more than 7% of calories.

Eliminate trans fats

Trans fats are made by heating liquid vegetable oils in the presence of hydrogen gas and a catalyst. Partially hydrogenated oils can withstand heating without breaking down making them ideal for frying foods. Trans fats are also found in beef fat and dairy fat in small amounts.

Trans fats lower HDL and raise LDL. They can also create inflammation and increase insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is when your body stops responding to insulin, causing an increase in blood sugar levels.

Increase unsaturated fats

Unsaturated fats are liquid at room temperature and are considered beneficial for health. They can improve blood cholesterol levels, reduce inflammation and stabilize heart rhythms. Unsaturated oils are found in food from plants such as vegetable oils, nuts and seeds. 

There are two types of unsaturated fats:

Monounsaturated fats which are found in avocados, oils suchs as peanut oil. canola oil, nuts like almonds and seeds like sesame and spinach seeds.

Polyunsaturated fats which are found in walnuts, fish, flax seeds and canola oil.

Eat foods rich in omega 3 fatty acids

Increase your physical activity

Exercise helps boost your body's HDL (good fat).

Quit smoking

Smoking  may lower your body's HDL(good fat).

Lose Weight

Drink alcohol in moderation

Drinking too much alcohol can increase your cholesterol level.

Take your medication