During the Lenten season, many people are eating fish on Fridays. While this is a great reason to start eating fish on a regular basis, the health benefits also should give you a good enough reason to continue to eat fish long after Easter.

The Health Benefits of Fish

• Omega-3 fatty acids help lower blood pressure, lower your heart rate, and improve your cardiovascular health.
• Fish provides DHA to pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, which is an essential nutrients to the brain development of fetus’ and infants.
• Fish reduces the risk of depression, stroke and mental decline in the elderly.
• Eating fish can also lower your risk for heart disease.
• Some studies suggest that omega-3 in fish help protect against diabetes, cancer, and slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease in its earliest stages.

If You Don’t Like Fish

If you’re like me and don’t like fish, there are many types of fish you can eat that give you the same fish health benefits without the fishy taste. For example, you can dress up tuna so that you can hardly taste the fishiness of it. You can make salmon patties and use ingredients to hide the fish taste. The key is to incorporate fish into your diet in a way that you will enjoy it!

Photo Courtesy of: La tartine gourmande on flickr

Did you know that the stress you put on your body each day can lead you to heart problems later in life? When your body is stressed, your heart has to pump harder to get blood moving fast enough to react to the stressor around you. Even if there is no threat that you need to fight or run from, your body will react as if there is. Over time, with your body in overdrive, your organs will tire and start to fail, which how you can end up with a heart attack.

The best way to help combat this effect of stress is through stress management techniques. While it may be difficult to avoid stress, there are things you can do to change your reaction or calm down your physiological response to it. Knowing how to bring your body down to baseline will mean that it has a change to repair and rejuvenate. In addition, decreasing the physiological effects of stress not only saves you energy in case you do need to react to a threat, it prevents damage.

If you know anyone who has died of heart disease, you know how devastating it is to lose a life prematurely due to this type of illness. Think about your own heart health and practice stress management daily. You’ll save your heart and your life.

(Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rcgb54303/3311664801/)