Practise a heart-friendly lifestyle

IN 1999 the World Heart Federation (WHF), in conjunction with the World Health Organisation (WHO), announced the establishment of World Heart Day.

World Heart Day was initiated to reduce the alarming morbidity and mortality caused by cardiovascular diseases (CVD), including heart disease and stroke. The World Heart Foundation wanted to reach out to everyone to inform that there are many ways to prevent or control heart disease.

World Heart Day (WHD) is celebrated globally on Sept 29, every year. Since the year 2000, each year, World Heart Day has been marked with a theme. The theme for 2022 is "Use heart for every heart".

'Use Heart' refers to thinking differently, making the right decisions, acting with courage, and helping others with respect and kindness. 'For Every Heart' implies that the beneficiaries of the good actions and habits adopted are mainly 'ourselves'.

The awareness campaign not only highlights good dietary habits, avoidance of tobacco, and optimum physical activity but goes beyond that.

The World Heart Federation's website encourages everyone to take an active part by involving in the awareness campaign, thereby getting authentic information and being ambassadors to share the facts with each one's family, friends, acquaintances, and contacts.

World Heart Day is for all. It makes the health campaign more personal by getting everyone actively involved. It is for 'ourselves' and 'our hearts'.

How often do we undergo a health check-up? Periodic monitoring and controlling blood glucose, cholesterol, and high blood pressure can help prevent CVD. Many hospitals and institutions worldwide encourage health check-ups on World Heart Day through awareness initiatives and by subsiding prices of the heart care screening tests.

On its website the Institut Jantung Negara (IJN) echoes the objectives of World Health Day. It has planned various activities, providing affordable heart screening packages. The World Heart Federation schedules educational talks and awareness sessions on the advantages of a good diet, physical exercise, and various health screening programmes for a healthier lifestyle.

The World Heart Day campaign includes sessions to cope and rehabilitate from psychological stress, which again is a major factor increasing the risk of CVD. With the general public involving themselves as ambassadors and sharing the correct information, its efforts will help reduce the global burden of CVD morbidity and mortality.

World Heart Day allows everyone to stop and consider how best to use the 'Use Heart' part of the theme for humanity, nature, and of course, for us. The World Heart Day campaign fact sheet encourages us to 'Use Heart' and be part of this great cause.

We can 'Use Heart' for Healthcare access, lowering blood pressure, ensuring a healthy diet, experiencing peace, promote health education and clean air, 'Use Heart' can also encourage us into increasing our physical activity or do just about anything else that helps us have a good healthy heart.

For instance, with people preferring walking and cycling to using motor vehicles, World Heart Federation believes this will reduce air pollution and contribute to a cleaner future, thereby fulfilling the purpose of the 'Use Heart'campaign.

We can personalise and focus on ourselves, our immediate neighbourhood, community, humanity, and nature.

Organising events like smoking cessation exercises, running or walking competitions, cleaning the environment, good dietary practices, and awareness talks by subject experts, cardiologists, dieticians, general physicians and so on will help cascade the ways to prevent and control risk factors and causes leading to heart attacks and stroke.

Let us all, unite for the great cause of achieving good cardiovascular health. Hospitals, education institutions, non-governmental agencies, and everyone should participate in activities that will do good to the heart health of others and us.

The World Heart Federation wants everyone to spread awareness about World Heart Day and its benefits to humanity through this campaign.

If this article encourages you to take ownership of your health and practise a heart-friendly lifestyle, then the article would have served its purpose.