Love Is In The Air With Algae! Love Yourself With 5 Heart-Healthy Tips

February 01 2021, by Catharine Arnston, 13 min reading time

Have you ever stopped to think about how amazing the human heart is? We did and since February is the month of love and heart health, we wanted to share our heart love with you too!

Did you know your heart does way more than just pump blood?

With each heartbeat, blood carries oxygen, hormones and nutrients to feed and fuel every cell in your body. Your heart receives messages that tell it when to pump more or less blood depending on your needs. When you’re sleeping, it pumps just enough to provide for the lower amounts of oxygen needed by your body at rest. When you’re exercising or frightened, the heart pumps faster to increase the delivery of oxygen. It even carries away unwanted carbon dioxide and waste products.

Emotional health, physical health and the right nutrition are essential for maintaining a healthy heart and a healthy life.

Keep reading to learn how taking care of your heart and providing it the right nutrients (like the nutrients found in algae!) can make a world of difference for your health.

Love is in the air! Can you feel it?

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two women jumping with heart — The nutrients found in algae are essential for maintaining a healthy heart!

A Healthy Heart Is A Healthy Life

Sadly, many of us aren’t showing our hearts enough love. Did you know that heart disease is the number one cause of death worldwide? Every 36 seconds, someone dies from cardiovascular disease <1>. And did you know that it’s mostly preventable by changing your lifestyle and managing risk factors? <2>

If you’re new here, you’ll quickly learn that nutrient-dense whole food (like algae!) is nature’s natural medicine and can be just as powerful and healing as other treatments and therapies. Just ask our good friend, Dr. Joel Kahn, one of the world’s top integrative cardiologists. He believes that plant-based nutrition is the most powerful source of preventative medicine on the planet, he’s also a big fan of our algae!

So, in honor of Valentine’s Day and American Heart Month, here are five natural ways you can love yourself better and give your heart what it needs to love you longer and better.

5 Ways to Strengthen & Protect Your Heart

1. Lower Your Blood Pressure

I’m sure you already know that lowering blood pressure is good for your heart. But do you know why?

High blood pressure forces your heart to work harder to pump your blood to the rest of your body. Making your heart work harder than it should, puts a strain on your health, not to mention your heart! High blood pressure can also damage your arteries by hardening them and making them less flexible. This decreases the flow of blood (and oxygen, hormones and nutrients) to your heart not to mention to the rest of your body. And it causes part of your heart to thicken which increases your risk of heart attack, heart failure or sudden cardiac death <3>.

Nitric oxide helps to expand and dilate the blood vessels, which increases the blood flow and improves circulation throughout the body <4>. An adequate amount of nitric oxide also reduces plaque growth and blood clots. Double win!

Magnesium is necessary for normal muscle function (remember your heart is a muscle!) and helps your blood vessels to relax and widen so blood can flow more easily <5>. A deficiency in magnesium can lead to muscle weakness, cardiomyopathy (heart muscle disease) and other problems like chest pain, high blood pressure, arrhythmias, congestive heart failure, or heart attack <5>. Yikes.

Two men taking blood pressure — ENERGYbits algae tablets are loaded with nitric oxide and magnesium to help lower blood pressure.

Our recommendation:

To help lower your blood pressure; reduce your sodium intake, eat a diet rich in nitric oxide and magnesium- like algae!

To make sure your body always has an adequate amount of nitric oxide and magnesium, skip the salt and eat foods like beets, grass fed animal protein, dark leafy greens and ENERGYbits® algae! Our algae tablets are loaded with nitric oxide and magnesium to keep your blood flowin’!

2. Get Moving

Are you fitting in at least 150 minutes (2.5 hours) of heart-pumping physical activity per week? If not, you’re not alone. Only about one in five adults and teens get enough exercise to maintain good health <6>.

Exercise is essential for your heart and can help lower your blood pressure, reduce the “bad” cholesterol (LDL), increase the “good” cholesterol (HDL), and reduce body weight. It can also help you improve your endurance and strengthen your heart. Remember… it’s a muscle!

Science has linked being inactive and sitting too much with higher risk of heart disease and even early death <7>. Exercise can also help you shed the extra few pounds we all tend to be carrying around this time of year – due to holidays and inactivity- thanks quarantine!

Losing just 5-10% percent of your weight may lower your chances of developing heart disease (if you weigh 200 pounds, this means losing as little as 10 pounds) <8>. Weight loss can improve blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and blood flow <9>.

women exercising on yoga ball — The nutrients found in algae will improve your endurance, oxygen flow, increase your time to exhaustion and boost your mood!

Our recommendation:

Get moving!

Being more active can help you think, feel and sleep better and perform daily tasks more easily <10>. And if you’re sedentary, sitting less is a great place to start!

Start off by setting a goal to get up and move every day. It could mean a 20-minute walk with your dog, a fun dance class you can stream on YouTube, or an evening bike ride with your kids. The goal is to get up and moving!

Next, incorporate ENERGYbits® spirulina (or BEAUTYbits®) tablets into your pre-workout regimen to give you the energy to break a sweat and then take RECOVERYbits® chlorella tablets after your workout to help remove lactic acid so your muscles aren’t sore the next day. Why does algae work so well? Spirulina’s 64% protein and high B Vitamins keep you naturally energized and powered through your workout with no crash and Chlorella’s high chlorophyll and hard cell wall attach to toxins like lactic acid and removes them- leaving you refreshed and restored from the inside. The nutrients in both algae will also improve your endurance, oxygen flow, increase your time to exhaustion <11>, boost your mood, all more – all thanks to mother nature! And we know that mom loves you best!

3. Reduce Inflammation

Think back to a time you got a splinter in your finger … your body most likely launched an attack with your white blood cells as your army. The Result? Redness and swelling to try and rid your body of the intruder.

Now think about this same situation in your cardiovascular system… poor diet, high blood pressure and LDL cholesterol can “injure” the heart, much like the splinter in your finger. This causes atherosclerosis, or the buildup of fatty deposits in your arteries. Which then results in hardened and more narrowed arteries <12>.

The body becomes inflamed and perceives this plaque as abnormal and foreign. In response, the body tries to block off the plaque from the flowing blood. However, that plaque may rupture, and lead to blood clots <12>.

heart shaped bowls with various snacks — Did you know fish get their omega-3s from algae? Algae has essential fatty acids to help with your heart health!

Our recommendation:

The best way to reduce inflammation is to include more inflammation-fighting nutrients like Omega-3 and antioxidants. One of the best sources for both of these is algae.

Omega-3 fatty acids decrease inflammation, prevent blood clots and help maintain a healthy heart by lowering blood pressure and cholesterol levels <13>. You can find omega-3 fatty acids in wild salmon or fish oil but algae is a safer, purer, vegan source- particularly spirulina algae like ENERGYbits® and BEAUTYbits®. Fish get their Omega-3 from algae so maybe you should too! You can skip all the fish oil burps and go straight to the most sustainable and healthy source of Omega-3 with algae. Your body will thank you and so will the fish!
Antioxidants protect against the oxidative stress and inflammation that contribute to the development of heart disease <14> , <15>. Free radicals cause oxidative stress, and this damages your cells – not just in your heart but everywhere. Antioxidants help to correct this by putting out the “fire” of inflammation. Foods like algae have the highest concentration of antioxidants in the world. Most people think of berries as being the gold standard for antioxidants. However, as you can see from the chart below, algae blows berries out of the water as far as their antioxidant composition. Your heart will❤️ algae!

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4. Destress, Meditate, Self-Love and Self-Care

There’s no question that stress can exert real physiologic effects on the body—including the heart. Some stress may be out of your control, but there are ways to better manage stress and prevent it from having a long-term negative effect on your health.

Studies suggest that high levels of cortisol from long-term stress can increase blood cholesterol, triglycerides, blood sugar, and blood pressure <16>. This stress can also cause changes that promote the buildup of plaque deposits in the arteries.

Chronic stress can also affect your heart in a more indirect way because when you’re worried, you tend to sleep poorly, exercise less and may make poor food choices – all of which can put your heart health at risk. Algae to the rescue and is one of the best stress relief foods!

Our recommendation:

Be more mindful.

Be more mindful about what you’re doing, what you’re thinking and how you’re breathing. Yoga, breathwork and mediation are time-honored, easy and proven ways to better manage your stress. This will help to lower your blood pressure and protector heart <17>. And here’s the best part of it- you can do it anytime, anywhere, even in your pajamas!

Algae can also help you with that and it even boosts your mood. Try incorporating RECOVERYbits chlorella into your nightly routine. Chlorella has a great source of tryptophan and the precursors for melatonin and serotonin, your sleep and mood systems.

5. Eat Algae

For all of the reasons we’ve stated above, and more, algae is great for your heart!

ENERGYbits® algae is the most nutrient-dense food on the planet and has more heart supporting nutrients such as:

Iron: Iron is vital to our health and is responsible for carrying oxygen throughout the body. Most of our iron is stored in our hemoglobin (red blood cells). Without sufficient iron, you fatigue, and cells aren’t oxygenated properly, and this contributes to an acidic environment and disease.

Folate: Studies on folate have shown that people who consumed more folate in their diet had fewer heart attacks. Folate aids in the breakdown of homocysteine, an amino acid related to heart disease, and peripheral artery and vascular disease <18>.

Vitamin K2: Vitamin K2 prevents the build-up of calcium in your arteries and thus, prevents stiff blood vessels and blood clots along with the serious health issues associated with them <19>.

Summary

Your heart needs your love and support every day and not just on February 14^th. You can share the love with algae! It’s important to love to yourself and loved ones so try skipping the candies this Valentine’s Day and give the gift of algae. It’s so much more loving to your heart and your waistline too! You can’t go wrong with healthy foods like ENERGYbits® algae!

This month love your heart and body to bits with algae! To learn more and stay up to date with algae, sign-up for our newsletter here!