What Top Heart Docs Do to Stay Healthy

Taking care of your heart seems so straightforward- exercise, eat whole foods, de-stress, sleep more-until it doesn't. Our favorite cardiologists are up against the same stuff-dinners out, late nights, MIA motivation-as the rest of us. Here, their tricks for prioritizing their health and taking down the number one killer of women (yes, that's heart disease).

- By Olivia Luppino

THE CHALLENGE: Scoring Enough Sleep

THE HACK: Negotiate the Details

Running on just five hours of sleep used to be a point of pride for Sharonne N. Hayes, MD, a cardiologist and professor of cardiovascular medicine at Mayo Clinic—until she kept noticing all the research about how important adequate sleep is for heart health. If you're wondering: Good sleep is associated with lower death rates from cardiovascular diseases (and, in fact, from all causes), according to a recent review in the American Journal of Preventive Cardiology. That's because it has benefits for your blood pressure, blood sugar, and weight control, Dr. Hayes says.

When she got the wake-up call that she wasn't getting enough (seven to nine hours is ideal), she knew she couldn't make a sleep commitment alone. "If you have a sleeping partner—in my case, my spouse—there probably needs to be some cooperation, or at least not obstruction, to a behavioral change like this," she says. She and her husband hit the sheets at the same time every night (research found that people with irregular sleep patterns were more likely to have plaque in their coronary arteries) and agree that if one of them isn't sleepy, the other will read a book on their phone in the dark. Off went the TV and in came more sleep. "We realized that [late-night] TV was more of a habit, and we honestly don't miss that habit much," she says. To stay up on those shows, the New York Times' Best of Late Night newsletter and must-sees on demand do the trick.

THE CHALLENGE: Being Consistent with Exercise

THE HACK: Find an Enthusiastic Partner