10 Ways to Improve Heart Health: What Works

The eating patterns with the strongest evidence for heart health are Mediterranean and DASH. Both lean on vegetables, fruit, beans, nuts, whole grains, fish and olive oil, and both keep sodium, added sugar, saturated fat and heavily processed foods low.

The best trial is PREDIMED. In 7,447 Spanish adults at high heart risk, a Mediterranean diet with extra olive oil or nuts led to about 30% fewer heart attacks, strokes and cardiovascular deaths over almost five years than a low-fat control diet. The trial had randomization problems at some sites and was reanalyzed in 2018, and the result held.

A few targets help. Keep sodium under 2,300 milligrams a day, the Dietary Guidelines limit cited by the FDA, against an American average of about 3,400. In a review of 34 trials, cutting about 1,700 milligrams of sodium a day lowered systolic blood pressure by about 4 points. For added sugar, the AHA suggests no more than about 100 calories a day for most women and 150 for most men, roughly 6% of calories. Make most of your grains whole.

This isn't about rigid rules. If most of your plates hold a protein, vegetables and a whole grain, with olive oil instead of butter and fruit instead of cookies, you're most of the way there. Our DASH diet guide covers the specifics, and our 100 Best Foods for Weight Loss guide has practical swaps that suit your heart as well as your waistline.

The CDC's guidelines for adults call for at least 150 minutes of moderate activity a week, or 75 minutes of vigorous activity, plus muscle-strengthening work on 2 days that hits the major muscle groups.

Broken down, 150 minutes is about 21 minutes a day, or 30 minutes on five days. A brisk walk counts. So do yard work, dancing and chasing kids around a park.

How you spread it matters less than people think. In a UK Biobank study of 89,573 adults who wore activity trackers for a week, weekend warriors who got most of their 150 minutes in one or two days had about the same lower risk of heart attack, heart failure, atrial fibrillation and stroke as people who spread it out. Consistency still helps you build the habit, but a packed weekend isn't wasted.

The strength piece matters more than most people realize. Muscle helps regulate blood sugar and supports your joints as you age, and you don't need a gym: bodyweight moves, bands or a pair of dumbbells will do it. Our exercise guide shows how to build a routine you'll keep.

Carrying less excess weight eases the load on your heart, helps control blood pressure, improves cholesterol and lowers diabetes risk. These factors travel together, so improving one often improves the others.

You don't need a dramatic number. In the Look AHEAD study of 5,145 adults with type 2 diabetes, people who lost 5% to under 10% of their weight in a year had better odds of meaningful drops in blood pressure, blood sugar and triglycerides and a rise in HDL cholesterol than people whose weight held steady. LDL cholesterol didn't change with weight loss.

The scale isn't the whole story either. Someone at a typical weight who smokes, doesn't move and has high blood pressure isn't low risk. Someone carrying extra pounds who eats well, exercises and has good numbers is in a better place than the scale suggests. Crash diets rarely last, and constant restriction is its own stress.

For an approach you can sustain, start with our guide to the best foods for weight loss. If the hard part is portioning, our meal plans arrive portioned with the nutrition printed.

High blood pressure usually has no symptoms until it causes damage, which is why measuring it matters. The categories below come from the [2025 AHA/ACC blood pressure guideline]({BPG}), which kept the cutoffs from 2017. If your two numbers fall in different categories, the higher one counts.

• Normal: below 120 systolic and below 80 diastolic.

• Elevated: 120 to 129 systolic and below 80 diastolic.

• Stage 1 hypertension: 130 to 139 systolic or 80 to 89 diastolic.

• Stage 2 hypertension: 140 or higher systolic or 90 or higher diastolic.

Don't panic over one high reading. Blood pressure moves through the day and can spike with stress, caffeine or even a full bladder. The USPSTF recommends confirming a high office reading with home or ambulatory monitoring before starting treatment.

If you check at home, use a validated upper-arm cuff rather than a wrist monitor. ValidateBP.org keeps a list of devices that have been tested for accuracy.

LDL cholesterol is a main driver of atherosclerosis, the plaque buildup in the arteries behind most heart attacks and strokes. Knowing your number early can spare you decades of slow damage.

A standard lipid panel reports total cholesterol, LDL, HDL and triglycerides. Some clinicians also test ApoB, a protein marker that may predict risk better than LDL alone in some people.

Lifestyle comes first: diet, exercise and weight. For many people it isn't enough, because genetics shape cholesterol too. The USPSTF recommends a statin for adults 40 to 75 who have at least one risk factor, such as high cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure or smoking, and a 10-year risk of 10% or more. At 7.5% to under 10%, it's a choice to make with your doctor.

If a statin isn't enough or you can't tolerate one, there are other options, including ezetimibe, PCSK9 inhibitors and bempedoic acid. Your doctor can tell you which fits your numbers.

Prediabetes and diabetes raise cardiovascular risk sharply. High blood sugar speeds up atherosclerosis and drives inflammation, and it tends to arrive with high blood pressure and abnormal cholesterol.

Many people don't know they have it. The CDC says more than 2 in 5 American adults have prediabetes and that it often goes undetected until serious problems show up. The CDC's one-minute prediabetes risk test can tell you whether you should get checked.

The better news is that prediabetes often responds to the same habits on this list. In the Diabetes Prevention Program, 3,234 adults with high blood sugar who aimed for 7% weight loss and 150 minutes of activity a week cut their rate of developing diabetes by 58% over about three years. The ADA's Standards of Care put lifestyle change at the foundation of treatment.

Sleep is now officially one of the AHA's Essential 8. Adults need 7 to 9 hours a night, and falling short night after night is linked to higher rates of high blood pressure, obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Short sleep also makes everything else on this list harder. It can disrupt hunger hormones, worsen blood sugar control and raise blood pressure, and it leaves you less likely to exercise. One bad night won't hurt you. A habit of five-hour nights adds up.

If good sleep is hard to come by, our complete sleep guide covers practical ways to improve both how long and how well you sleep.

This one is simple to say: don't smoke, don't vape and don't use other nicotine products. Smoking damages the lining of blood vessels, raises blood pressure and heart rate, makes blood more likely to clot and cuts the oxygen your blood can carry.

Vaping may be less harmful than cigarettes, but it still delivers nicotine and other substances that stress the cardiovascular system. The AHA's overview of how smoking and nicotine damage your body lays out the details. If you don't use nicotine, don't start. If you do, quitting is the most important thing you can do for your heart.

Quitting is hard, and most people need more than one try. Counseling, medication and nicotine replacement all raise the odds. The AHA's quit resources are a good place to start, and your doctor can prescribe help.

For years, moderate drinking was sold as good for the heart. The red wine story hasn't held up well.

The AHA's 2025 scientific statement on alcohol is careful about it. Most of the research is observational and prone to bias. Low intake, no more than 1 to 2 drinks a day, showed no added risk to a possible small reduction for coronary disease and stroke, and its effect on atrial fibrillation is still unknown. Binge drinking or 3 or more drinks a day was consistently tied to worse outcomes in every cardiovascular condition studied.

The statement's bottom line: it remains unknown whether drinking belongs in a healthy lifestyle. So there's no heart reason to start. If you drink, keep it low, skip the binges, and don't count a glass of wine as a heart habit.

Chronic stress affects the heart directly, through stress hormones that raise blood pressure, and indirectly, because stressed people tend to sleep less, eat worse, move less and drink more.

The AHA recognizes the link between poor psychological health and higher cardiovascular risk. You can't remove all stress, but regular buffers help: exercise, enough sleep, time outside, hobbies and people you enjoy.

Social isolation is an underrated risk factor. An AHA scientific statement found the evidence most consistent for a link between isolation or loneliness and deaths from coronary heart disease and stroke. The effects were small and may be partly explained by other factors, but the direction is clear enough to act on: keep up close friendships, join something in your community, and make time for the people who matter to you.