FEBRUARY 2022
Age Well Center at Lake Elizabeth
Age Well Center at South Fremont
Heart disease is one of the most widespread and complicated health challenges faced in the US. As a result, February has been dedicated as heart health month. BACH’s (Bay Area Community Health) Clinical Director, Dr. Gemma Jamena, MD offers the following tips to improve our heart health: From pandemic to the great resignation, the evolving political and actual climate, 2021 had its share of heartbreaks. As a result, protecting one’s heart literally and figuratively has become more important in the majority of the population as we start 2022. Though our personal control over things only extends to our fingertips, this amount of power to effect change is still significant. Choose to focus on the following: •
Remove nicotine from your body, which constricts your blood vessels and quit smoking today.
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Say no to that extra dash of salt in your next meal.
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Exercise 15—20 minutes today aiming for a 150 minutes per week.
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Ask your medical provider about your blood pressure, cholesterol, cardiac risk and if aspirin and/or statins are right for you.
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Start sleep 10—11 pm for optimized sleep.
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Manage stress with box breathing, mindfulness and unplugging from toxic media.
All these small choices have power — just repeat with consistency. Medicine has given us tools to help treat blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes — the triad that affects cardiovascular health significantly. Yet, we should not belittle the effect of healthy life choices. All these are heart protective steps that do not require a pill. You can safeguard your heart and it can start today. Go ahead, let’s make it happen. Your heart will thank you. BACH collaborates with the Age Well Centers by sending staff to both centers to conduct free blood pressure testing. Please come by to get your test!
www.fremont.gov/agewellcenters /AgeWellCenters agewellcenters@fremont.gov
Both Age Well Centers now open Monday-Friday 8am-1pm