Chances are, you got your blood test report and found out you have high cholesterol. Worried it might cause damage to your heart?
Well, the thought is not unfounded…
You do increase your risk of developing heart disease with high levels of cholesterol. But there is good news: it’s a risk you can control!
You can easily reduce cholesterol with some natural, lifestyle-based strategies.
If you have extremely high cholesterol, use Krishna’s Choles-terol Care Juice —an Ayurvedic medicine made with naturally found ingredients.
For mildly or moderately high cholesterol, you might not need medications; just some lifestyle tweaks can be enough. Follow these natural methods to manage your cholesterol effectively.
Must Read: Warning Signs Of High Cholesterol That You Shouldn’t Ignore
1. Focus on heart-healthy foods
Most of the cholesterol your body needs for essential function is made by your liver. The rest is taken from the foods you eat. Therefore, choosing wisely what to eat can make a big difference.
So, what nutritious choices should you make to lower your blood cholesterol?
Eat simple! Healthy eating does not need to be a restrictive diet..instead, it should be a balanced one.
A well-balanced nutritious plate should be filled half with high-fibre vegetables and fruit, one-fourth with whole grains or starchy foods, and another fourth with lean protein and healthy fats.
- Consume more soluble fibre, which is abundant in vegetables and whole grains such as oatmeal, chickpeas, kidney beans, sprouts, and flaxseeds. This type of fibre lowers the absorption of cholesterol into your bloodstream and has a protective effect against cardiovascular diseases.
- Avoid saturated fats that are majorly found in red meat and full-fat dairy products. Trans fats present in fried and unprocessed foods may also raise your total cholesterol. Include healthy fats like Omega-3 fatty acids, they improve your “good” HDL cholesterol levels (help to remove other cholesterol from your body). Good sources are: walnuts, chia seeds, and flax seeds.
- Eat more plant sources of protein like beans, lentils, and soybeans. Unlike animal proteins, which can raise blood cholesterol levels, these plant-based options can actually help lower cholesterol.
2. Get moving
Regular exercise for at least 30 minutes a day combined with a healthy diet does a very good job of lowering your total and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, the “Bad” cholesterol.
Along with improving cholesterol levels, there are many other health-enhancing perks that you can get from being physically active such as your blood sugar and blood pressure levels staying balanced.
High cholesterol is associated with diabetes and high blood pressure. The common factor is that increased cholesterol can cause fatty plaques to accumulate in your arteries, and affect your overall health. To prevent or manage these conditions use Diabic Care Juice & BP Care Juice available at Krishna Ayurveda.
Regular exercise may also help maintain a healthy weight and prevent obesity, which is a common cause of developing high cholesterol levels. So, if you are someone who hasn’t been active, now is the time!
Even short intervals of exercise for several times a day will count. Consider activities you enjoy like a brisk walk, aerobics, riding a bicycle or playing your favourite sport.
To stay motivated and keep yourself on track, find your tribe or an exercise buddy.
3. Ditch those cigarettes
Smoking, Cholesterol and Heart disease form a vicious triad!
It is well known that there is no safe level of smoking and it is bad for health. But, did you know it also raises your cholesterol levels?
Beyond just affecting your lungs, smoking can impact your cardiovascular health.
When you smoke a cigarette, your lungs absorb substances from the vapours released in cigarette smoke which leads to a lowering of good cholesterol and an increase of bad cholesterol. Smoking also makes your blood thicker and sticky which makes it more likely to clot. This eventually causes damage and narrowing of your arteries, obstructing easy blood circulation throughout your body. This puts you at increased risk of cardiovascular diseases and related health problems.
Moreover, cigarette smoke has a highly reactive compound called acrolein, which prevents the good cholesterol in your blood from doing its job, i.e. removing bad cholesterol from your arteries.
Research has also found that smoking not only affects your cholesterol levels but also reduces the effectiveness of cholesterol-lowering medications like statins.
Now, the question comes, does quitting smoking lower your cholesterol?
Yes, it does improve your cholesterol. Cutting out smoking can help increase your good cholesterol levels and reverse the cigarette-induced spike in your blood pressure and heart rate. Infact, within three months of quitting, your lung function and blood start to improve and within a year, your risk of heart disease is reduced to half that of a smoker.
4. Limit your alcohol intake
Alcohol can impact cholesterol in two main ways, depending on how much and how often you drink. In small to moderate amounts, alcohol can increase your “good” cholesterol, which may help protect against heart disease.
But, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Heart Association (AHA) have differing views. The AHA does not advise drinking any alcoholic beverages specifically to lower cholesterol or boost heart health. Both organizations point out that there is no reliable research showing that alcohol consumption improves heart health.
Thus, it is better to avoid drinking. Too much of it can raise your triglycerides (a type of fat in the blood), which is harmful and may also increase your blood pressure– a major factor that impacts cholesterol levels.
5. Stress less
Feeling under pressure for a long time or worrying too much can increase your cholesterol and your heart risk. A study reports that constant stress increases your bad cholesterol indirectly.
In long-term psychological stress, your adrenal glands (triangular-shaped glands present on top of both kidneys) release a hormone called cortisol which has a cholesterol-raising effect.
The hormone also plays a role in delivering glucose to your body to help the fight-or-flight mechanism (primitive response of your body to stress) function properly. During such times your blood sugar levels remain constantly high, which not only increases your risk of diabetes but also elevates cholesterol levels.
Stress also makes you indulge in unhealthy habits like binge eating and poor food choices – all of this affects your cholesterol levels.
To lower the risk of high cholesterol caused by stress, stay active, practice relaxation techniques like yoga, meditation, and breathing exercises, and eat a nutritious diet.
Key Takeaways
- Though cholesterol plays an important role in bodily functions, having too much of it can cause health risks.
- Simple lifestyle changes and habits that nurture your body can go a long way in reducing cholesterol quickly and permanently.
- By following the above natural ways to lower cholesterol you can reduce your risk of heart disease by 20% to 30%.
- It may take around 3 months or more to see improvement in your cholesterol levels with diet and exercise alone, but adding Ayurvedic medicines such as Krishna’s Cholesterol-care juice to your lifestyle changes may help reduce cholesterol faster.
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