High blood pressure. High cholesterol. It can be easy to dismiss risk factors for heart disease as a problem for older people. But, as our Seaport Fit partners at NewYork-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital explain, it’s never too early to implement habits to keep your heart in peak condition—yes, even you, Millennials.

NewYork-Presbyterian’s 10 Easy Heart Health Tips is a great resource for all things healthy living. Two recent Health Matters articles in particular address the importance of diet and lifestyle for maintaining a strong heart. Here’s the scoop.

Choices Matter
“Our behaviors have consequences,” says Dr. Nisha Jhalani, director of clinical and educational services at the Center for Interventional Vascular Therapy at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. In the Health Matters article, What Millennials Need to Know About Safeguarding their Heart Health,she elaborates on how: “What you put in your body in your teens and 20s, from smoking to bad diet choices, all wreak havoc internally, but you won’t pay until down the road, and by then it’s too late.”

In fact, Dr. Jhalani explains that even children should be screened for risk factors if they have a history of heart disease in their family. For people without such a history, Dr. Jhalani suggests that age 20 is a good age to begin conversations with your doctor about heart health.

As for the dos and don’ts for a healthy heart? Read the full interview with Dr. Jhalani for details on how smoking, diet, alcohol and exercise all play a role.

Easy Heart Health Tips
Want to skip straight to the expert advice? The Health Matters article, 10 Easy Heart Health Tips, is for you. In this piece, NewYork-Presbyterian cardiologists share simple—including some that are actually fun—ways to maintain a healthy heart. They also take the pandemic into consideration and provide workarounds—like taking a walk to a local park if you can’t work out indoors at a gym. Getting creative with new recipes and avoiding sitting for too long are just two of the top tips. Click through for the full list of the doctors’ recommendations.

For more healthy living tips and insight from the team at NewYork-Presbyterian, bookmark healthmatters.nyp.org. And don’t miss out on free workouts with NYC’s top trainers here in the Seaport. Book Seaport Fit classes here.