Change is an important part of living with heart disease or trying to prevent it. Furthermore, your heart is a muscular mass that can literally change shape as a result of the lifestyle choices you make every day. A jump in blood pressure or a rise in cholesterol levels is actually a warrant that urges you to learn healthy lifestyle changes. Heart attack and stroke survivors are often told to alter a lifetime of habits. Some people manage to revamp their exercise pattern, diet and unhealthy habits in a better way with ease. The rest keep try to make changes, but unfortunately don't always succeed. So, instead of undertaking a huge transformation, you might be able to improve your heart's health with a series of small alterations in your lifestyle. Once you start and get going, I am sure you will find out that change isn't so bad or even hard. Although, this route may take longer, it could also motivate you to make some big changes once you start seeing that there is actually something you can do.Prime key points in lifestyle change:Inactivity: Be careful of how often you are parked on your butt!Too much sitting around can trigger the growth of pericardial fat, a type of gooey buildup that gloms onto your heart (that increases your heart disease risk). Exercise alone won't shove this risk away, so it's not enough to hit the gym after a long sedentary day at your desk. You actually need to spend less overall time on your back to reserve or evade the damage. Smoking: As you may hear every single day, puffing cigarettes increases your risk for atherosclerosis, which can contract and clog your arteries, the pipes that carry blood away from your heart. Blocked arteries can cause reduced blood flow and higher blood pressure, making your heart work overtime (as a result, depriving most of your organs of the fuel they need: oxygen rich blood). A single cigarette - or even, breathing in secondhand smoke - can damage the heart; you should just say never. Exercise: Just one 30 minute, heart-pounding workout beefs up the tiny blood vessels or capillaries on the heart's surface. The more active and robust your arteries are, the more blood flow your heart can handle - and the stronger it will become over time.In the other words, it will grow just like any other muscle. The aim is obviously not to grow the heart but the artery bed that feeds up the heart to increase the powering capacity of your energy core and to reduce the troublesome outcome of a major heart attack. Aim for at least 2.5 hours of weekly cardio exercise to make sure your capillaries stay nice and plump. Additionally, over exercise (more than 12 hours a week) is also an oxidizing threat for your arteries. So more and more is not as good as moderate exercise in this scenario.Say yes to these, not to those!What are these?Optimism and blessings: Good news! A cheery disposition has been linked to a lower risk for heart disease, especially among people with a family history of the disorder. A sunny temperament may serve as a buffer against heart health - sapping the stress away. Additionally, taking a moment each day to acknowledge the blessings in your life is one way to start tapping into other positive emotions. Positive emotions have been scientifically linked with better health, longer life and greater well-being, while their opposites - chronic anger, worry and hostility - contribute to high blood pressure and heart disease. Tea: There is solid evidence that tea consumption is associated with a lowered risk of heart disease and stroke. A study found that in males, deaths from coronary artery disease were reduced by 40 percent among those who drank one or more cups of tea daily, and another study from Harvard showed that there was a 44 percent lower risk of heart attack in people who drank at least one cup of tea daily. Both green and black varieties may also help reduce "bad" cholesterol. Having regular cups can also improve artery function. Skip bottled versions and brew it yourself for the greatest benefits. Vitamin D: Vitamin D has long been valued for its role in preventing rickets and building strong bones.Recently, it has also been associated with the prevention and treatment of diabetes, cancer, osteoarthritis and immune system disorders. Now, the latest research shows that vitamin D is also beneficial in preventing heart disease. Therefore, to further decrease your risk of a heart attack, you should also keep vitamin D in your medicine cabinet. A growing number of studies support the idea that low levels of vitamin D are linked to an increased risk of heart disease, and that adding vitamin D supplements can help reduce this risk. Magnesium: The minerals play a crucial role in helping your heart beat, and an extra 200 milligrams daily could slash your cardiac disease risk by 22 percent. Load your plate with magnesium superstars like whole grains, nuts and leaf greens. Have a handful of nuts: Eat at least one fistful of nuts a day. Nuts are an excellent source of both healthy fats and healthy protein; they can also be concentrated sources of flavonoids, an antioxidant.Try grabbing some instead of chips or cookies when you need a snack, adding them to salads for a healthy and tasty crunch, or using them in place of meat in pasta and other dishes. In several studies, one ounce of nuts a day showed to decrease the incidence of heart disease between 20 and 60 percent. The best nuts (those highest in omega-3 fatty acids) are walnuts, but all nuts - even legume peanuts - are good for you. Just keep it to a fistful a day, and note that going back for seconds (and thirds, and fourths) will start to expand your waist.What are those?Constant Noise: Living near a busy airport or always being around loud traffic could increase your risk of heart disease. Experts believe noise pollution can cause an uptick in stress, which increases blood pressure.Personally I have even operated a patient whose aorta was dissected by hypertensive attack in heavy rush hour traffic. So, go for earplugs! Hormonal Mayhem: Heart attack risk can be seven times higher in women with out-of-whack estrogen or testosterone levels. If you notice irregular periods, sudden weight gain or excessive body hair, see your doctor as soon as possible. Really! Air Pollution: Researchers estimate that cleaning up smoggy air cloud prevent nearly 8,000 heart failure hospitalizations each year.Breathing it in just like a secondhand cigarette smoke may contribute to atherosclerosis, a hardening of the arteries. Just moving farther away from big roadways can reduce your risk. Anger: Sure, everyone has the right to get pissed off from time to time. But a permanently angry stance is extra hard on your heart. Chances of a heart attack increases more than twofold in two hours after a rage-fueled outburst, thanks to sky-high levels of adrenaline and cortisol that squeeze arteries.