Heartsavers - Introduction
You get the most benefit from life style changes by
addressing all the factors that are important for the health of your heart.
Deal with all the factors at once.
The holistic approach
The main lifestyle factors that you can change to reduce your risk of heart disease are Diet, Exercise, Smoking and Stress. In subsequent sections we will deal with each of these factors in turn and attempt to summarise the scientific evidence available.
This is what we call the reductionist point of view, without which much of modern science would be impossible. In other words we take things apart and study the individual bits in order to understand the whole.
Where the reductionist approach falls short however, is that it fails to demonstrate the inter-connectivity between all the various factors. For example exercise and stress are dealt with in separate sections yet they are connected, certain aspects of exercise will reduce your stress levels. Similarly smoking will reduce your blood pressure, but so too will exercise and stress management techniques.
Although adopting each lifestyle change individually will give you some health benefits, you will find it easier to change your life by making changes to all the factors at once. It seems that the benefits of comprehensive lifestyle changes add up to more than the sum of the various parts.
So read the various parts and then build up a picture of the whole view, a way of living that is better in virtually every way. This is the holistic approach.