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Prevention magazine published a great article recently outlining the steps you can take to help prevent future heart attacks and strokes. According to Dr. Arthur Agatston, the advanced imaging and blood tests available today can catch cardiovascular disease 20 to 30 years before it gets severe enough to cause a heart attack or stroke.

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Are you healthy? Many reading this will immediately answer “yes” without giving it another thought. What is the definition of being “healthy”? Do you think it is a person who never gets a cold or the flu? Is it someone who is not on any prescription medications or never goes to the doctor? There are many “unhealthy” people walking around that just don’t know it or just don’t want to be told differently. Are you one of those people?

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Every February our attention is turned to “hearts”. Most of the time it is the chocolate kind as seen when you walk into any retail store. But February is also “Heart Awareness Month”. It is an important time to remember that keeping our heart healthy may prevent a family from becoming “heart broken”.

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Everyone occasionally has a sleepless night, but the holiday season can make those more frequent. Planning for parties, selecting menus, decorating, worrying about overspending and finding the right gifts can affect our sleep simply because it is hard to “turn our minds off”. If we don’t get adequate rest, our immune system can weaken making it easier to contract a cold or the flu.

This type of insomnia may be considered acute or situational, but many people suffer with insomnia chronically. Insomnia is defined as difficulty falling or staying asleep resulting in lack of restorative sleep. This can lead to symptoms of fatigue, difficulty concentrating, mood disturbances and daytime sleepiness. Sleep onset should be within thirty minutes. Getting up more than once a night to urinate is abnormal unless fluids have been consumed up until or near bedtime or medication has been taken that causes frequent urination.

The average adult needs six to eight hours of restful sleep. There are many things that can interfere with sleep based on lifestyle choices. Some of those include eating too late at night, drinking too much alcohol or other fluids in the evening, taking decongestants or use of any form of nicotine.

Overeating or eating too late at night can cause one to wake up with heartburn caused by reflux. While alcohol can initially cause relaxation and drowsiness, it reduces the deep sleep that is restorative.Sodas, tea, coffee, and chocolate all contain caffeine, a stimulant that can cause insomnia. Since decongestants and nicotine are also stimulants like caffeine, their avoidance late in the day can also help foster better sleep.

Avoid using your bedroom for anything other than sleep or sex. Watch television, read, work on the computer and do all other potentially sleep disturbing activities in another room. Avoid placing a clock in a location easily seen during the night. This way you won’t be checking the time frequently if you can’t sleep. Just set your alarm and then you won’t have to worry about not waking up. A warm bath, tranquil music, or meditation can help. Avoid going to bed until you feel sleepy.

For many, changing one or more of these lifestyle habits can result in improved sleep. If these don’t work, your physician or primary care provider should be consulted. If another cause of insomnia such as depression, anxiety, hormonal imbalance, sleep apnea or restless legs is found, the appropriate treatment can be instituted and sleep can be restored.

One of the most common conditions seen by doctors today is referred to as metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome indicates that the person is basically pre-diabetic and therefore also at increased risk for cardiovascular disease such as heart attack and stroke. There are five criteria for metabolic syndrome. Anyone that has three out of the five criteria is considered to have the condition.

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