LOVE YOUR HEART ALL DAY LONG

Ticktock! Here’s how to care for your ticker—from morning to night.

- CAITLIN CARLSON

JUDGING FROM NEARLY every pop song ever written, humans are obsessed with the heart, metaphorically speaking. But the actual, physical organ? Many of us go through the day without giving it much thought. Well, we should! According to the CDC, about 44% of women in the United States have some form of heart disease, which kills more women annually than all cancers combined.

Even if you’ve always had good blood pressure—which is linked to a lower risk of heart problems—that can change when you begin menopause, says Kathryn M. Rexrode, MD, MPH, chief of the Division of Women’s Health at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Estrogen helps blood vessels relax and dilate, and when the hormone declines during perimenopause, vessels can constrict, increasing blood pressure, she says. “Menopause-related weight gain and other hormone changes may also contribute to a rise in your numbers, including cholesterol levels, another indicator of heart health,” Rexrode says.

Lifestyle tweaks can help protect your heart—at any age. Here, we lay out some of the simplest and most effective science-backed strategies in an hour-by-hour guide. Don’t feel like you have to follow the schedule to a T. Just get going, and if you falter, give yourself grace and try again, says Smadar Kort, MD, codirector of the Valve Center at the Stony Brook Heart Institute on Long Island, New York. “Every step you make in the right direction is important.”

7 a.m. Eat produce

What to have for breakfast? Something plant based, or at least plant