Doing THIS Doubles Your Second Heart Attack Risk
If you’ve experienced a heart attack, your risk of another heart-related event skyrockets—doubling within the first year when you make one common mistake.
But you can beat those odds.
Making these two simple changes dramatically reduces your risk of having a second heart attack or dying within the following year.
Researchers followed over 600 adults who received treatment for a heart attack or chest pain. The volunteers wore wrist accelerometers for an average of 30 days to establish their daily activity levels.
Those with the lowest activity levels had a 2.58 times higher risk of having a heart-related problem or dying within the next year compared to those with the highest levels.
For perspective, those with the most physical activity averaged 143 minutes of light movement daily, and only 11.7 hours were sedentary.
Those in the least active group spent only about 82 minutes engaging in light activity and 15.6 hours being sedentary.
The protective effect of sitting less during the day was clear.
Substituting sedentary time with 30 minutes of…
- physical activity (moderate to intense) reduced the risk of a future heart event or death by 61 percent
- sleep reduced those same risks by 14 percent
It might seem contradictory that sleeping reduces the harm of sitting. But consider this: Your body restores and repairs itself during sleep, and getting plenty of it is an established lifestyle factor that we know reduces heart disease risk.
However, don’t make the mistake of exercising and then spending the rest of the day in your easy chair. Instead, incorporate that extra 30 minutes of movement throughout your day.
Those in the study with the most activity moved for a little less than 2.5 hours daily. That’s about nine minutes for every hour you’re awake.
That’s something just about anyone can accomplish if they focus on it.
So set alarms if you need to. Then, at the top of every hour, get up and do something. Wash the dishes, fold some laundry, prepare dinner, walk to the end of the driveway and back, or visit a neighbor.
Whatever you do… just get moving.
P.S. Pick up the pace to protect your heart.
View Sources
Diaz, Keith M.,Boudreaux, Benjamin D., Xu, Chang, Sanchez, Gabriel J., et al., Sedentary Behavior and Cardiac Events and Mortality After Hospitalization for Acute Coronary Syndrome Symptoms: A Prospective Study, Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, American Heart Association, doi: 10.1161/CIRCOUTCOMES.124.011644
