Go Red! Heart Health, Risk Factors, Stress Relief, Recipes and More

Did you know that Heart Dis­ease is the No. 1 killer of women in the United States? It claims more lives than all forms of cancer com­bined. As women, we try to push through the stres­sors of the day, never wanting to let on that we can’t handle any­thing that is thrown our way. Way too often we ignore our own needs and the cries for help that our bodies are sending us. Heart dis­ease and heart attack symp­toms in women vary from those of men. Learn these symp­toms and red flags so that you can iden­tify any issues in your own health or those close to you. Most impor­tantly though, don’t ignore your own symp­toms trying to be Wonder Women and handle it all. Click the link below to see a great video star­ring Eliz­a­beth Banks. It gives a fan­tastic illus­tra­tion of how, as women, we become so busy with our daily lives that we ignore warning signs and most impor­tantly how we chose to be in denial when some­thing is clearly wrong with our health.

What do you know about your heart health? What num­bers are impor­tant? Know your risks for heart dis­ease and heart attack. Find out how birth con­trol, preg­nancy and menopause all affect your heart health. In addi­tion to the Amer­ican Heart Asso­ci­a­tion web­site, which is chock full of infor­ma­tion,  Go Red for Women  has a fab­u­lous Pin­terest page with great infor­ma­tion, tips, recipes and more!

How does stress affect the body? Do you know that when you are stressed, your body releases adren­a­line, a hor­mone that causes your heart rate and res­pi­ra­tion to increase? It also causes your body to increase cor­tisol levels putting your body in the fight or flight stage. Over time, high cor­tisol levels can cause stress on major organs and your adrenal glands. Adrenals is cru­cial in hor­mone reg­u­la­tion and thy­roid func­tion. If your thy­roid is out of whack, so is your heart rate, breathing and sleeping. We all know what lack of sleep can do to the body and heart rate. So, as you can see, this one little word “stress” can wreck havoc on all aspects of your health. What can you do to relieve stress? Go Red has an amazing board to get fit on Pin­terest. It lists exer­cises for stress man­age­ment including yoga and med­i­ta­tion. In addi­tion, the Amer­ican Heart Asso­ci­a­tion web­site has a fab­u­lous stress man­ag­ment sec­tion with tips and links on how to reduce the stress in your life. For those of you who will be attending our First Friday event, we will have yoga instruc­tors from Evola­tion Yoga avail­able to answer and ques­tions you may have about yoga and med­i­ta­tion and to talk about the amazing ben­e­fits of both. Evola­tion loves you and your heart and to show their love, you will find a spe­cial gift from them in your swag bag.

As promised, we have a yummy heart healthy recipe for you to try. In our First Friday blog from Jan­uary, we posted a recipe for Energy Bites. These are actu­ally heart healthy food too! With the oat­meal, choco­late chips and flax seed, it is a winner in a bite sized morsel. For added heart health, use dark choco­late chips, add ground chia seed (omega 3s!!!) and dried cher­ries. This recipe, how­ever, is for you dip­pers. Avo­cado Cilantro hummus to help you get those veg­gies your body so des­per­ately craves. For more recipes (buf­falo chicken, salmon, frozen yogurt bars and more!) for your heart health, check out Go Red and their Heart-​​Healthy Recipes board on Pinterest.

Avo­cado Cilantro Hummus

• 1 can of gar­banzo beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/​4 cup STAR Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1 large avo­cado, scooped from the peel
• 1 clove garlic
• Cilantro, to taste (I love cilantro, so I added an over­flowing cupful)
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 2 tsp. Tahini (a sesame paste that you can find at most gro­cery stores)
• 1/​2 tsp. kosher salt (reg­ular salt is fine, too)

Add all ingre­di­ents to a food processor or blender and mix to desired con­sis­tency. Easy peasy! Serve with your favorite raw veggies.

Loving you with our whole heart and more, Clayton Gray Home wishes you fab­u­lous heart health! We look for­ward to seeing our Tampa locals on Friday night for our First Friday Cel­e­bra­tion on Feb­ruary 7th. Remember, if you make a dona­tion to the Amer­ican Heart Asso­ci­a­tion, you will receive a $25 Clayton Gray Home gift card to be used during the month of February.

Don’t forget to include your home in the Go Red move­ment. Our Go Red for the Home Pin­terest pin has just what you need to add to the heart of your home.  You can also find our RED decor sec­tion on our web­site at Clayton Gray Home.