With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, this is a great time to commit to minding your heart, so you can keep on loving and being loved. 

​

Below are some tips to consider when adapting your diet to be more heart-health focused: 

​

• Limit your salt intake 

• Swap saturated fats for unsaturated fats 

• Feast on oily fish for heart healthy omega-3's - try out our Smoked Salmon and Spring Onion Fishcakes with Citrus Crème Fraiche recipe

• Choose higher fibre options – see our recipe for Vegan Mediterannean Beans and Cous Cous   

• Stock up on fruits and vegetables  

• Try to limit alcohol intake 

Our heart, just like any other muscle, can be strengthened with any exercise that increases your heart rate. This helps to lower blood pressure and stress, while increasing energy, sleep, cognition, self-esteem and our mood. Here are three ways to incorporate exercise when WFH: 

1. Set aside time for physical activities you enjoy and work it into your daily routine. Check out this super simple beginners ‘10-minute living room workout’.

2. Schedule in short bursts of exercise throughout the day, be-it a quick run before work or a brisk walk in the evening. 

3. Build a simple home workout that can be achieved daily throughout the week. We’ve put together a 10-minute heart-strengthening circuit routine that can be done anytime of day.

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, this month we also look at the importance of kindness.  Acts of kindness, no matter how small, have the potential to make the world a happier place.  

​

Think about the last time that you received a kind gesture - either a word of thanks from a colleague, or a bunch of flowers arriving at your door after a particularly tough week. Sometimes even the smallest of gestures can go a very long way in cheering us up, as well as strengthening bonds and friendships.  

 

This month, acknowledge a friend, family member or colleague by offering kindness. No gesture is too small – even a phone call, for no reason other than to just check in, can make a real difference to how you are both feeling.