In last Friday’s Advisor, we looked at the growing problem of obesity in America and how wellness training can improve your employees’ health and your organization’s bottom line. Today we’ll focus on the related issue of heart attacks and how you can train employees to lower their risk.
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February is American Heart Month, the perfect time to conduct a wellness training session on heart health. In order to reduce the risk of heart attack, employees must first understand the causes and contributing factors. That’s where safety and health training come in.
Explain to employees how the heart receives oxygen-rich blood from the lungs and sends it throughout the body. A heart attack occurs when a clot blocks an artery that carries the blood. Blockages damage the heart muscle within minutes. Within hours, the damage may be so great that it prevents the heart from functioning.
While some risk factors for heart attacks can be prevented or controlled, others cannot, including a family history of heart disease, age, or being male.
According to BLR’s 7-Minute Safety Trainer, heart attack risk factors that can be prevented or controlled include:
- Being overweight, which makes your heart work too hard
- High cholesterol levels and diets high in cholesterol and saturated fat, which clog and block the arteries
- Smoking, which narrows blood vessels, increases heart rate, and doubles heart attack risk
- Lack of exercise, which can increase body weight and cholesterol levels
- Stress, which can trigger health problems and weaken the heart
- High blood pressure, which makes the heart work harder and weakens it
- Diabetes, which, if uncontrolled, increases cholesterol levels
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The single best way to lower your risk of a heart attack is to stop smoking. Another good risk-reduction step is to improve your diet. Ways you can do this include:
- Eating fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grain breads, cereals, pasta, and rice
- Avoiding saturated fats like butter, "junk food," fried food, creams, and gravy
- Eating steamed, broiled, and baked foods and low- or nonfat dairy products
- Restricting salt intake to keep blood pressure down
—Checking packaged food labels for sodium content
—Substituting pepper or other seasonings for sodium - Avoiding alcohol to keep blood pressure down (and if you’re diabetic)
If you do experience symptoms of a heart attack, take immediate action. Get to a hospital immediately if you experience:
- Chest pain that lasts longer than 10 minutes. This could range from slight discomfort to pressure or tightness to crushing pain.
- Pain that radiates to the left shoulder, arm, back, teeth, and/or jaw even if you rest, change position, or take medicine
In addition, promptly tell your doctor about such other potential heart-problem symptoms as:
- Frequent angina—chest pain that goes away when you rest (It’s a sign your heart needs more oxygen.)
- Shortness of breath
- Weakness
- Anxiety or restlessness
- Dizziness, fainting, and/or change in pulse rate
- Sweating
- Nausea and/or vomiting
- Pale or bluish skin
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Why It Matters
- Heart health is critical to overall health.
- Many of the risk factors for heart problems can be avoided.
- Training on a heart-healthy lifestyle, therefore, is a worthwhile endeavor to help keep your employees healthy and productive