Time to be well with your health. I'm Shanna and Nimeet. And welcome to the Adventist HealthCare and You podcast.

We are welcoming back wonderful guests today, Doctor Millan Patel. Welcome, Doctor Patel.

Thanks for having me again, We are talking about heart health, and the everyday habits like sitting all day long, as we're sitting here in this podcast room, that can impact your heart health.

You know, when I worked at the hospital before, I used to be in my feet all the time. And now that I'm at more of a desk job, miss it all the time where I'm not on my feet, I'm not walking around. So really excited about this, just get some tips and tricks on how to navigate that while you're sitting at the desk and what some of the things you could do.

So really Yeah.

We all just, I just, you get into your routine and you just don't think about the small things that add up. So we're excited here to have Doctor Patel, tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do here at Adventist HealthCare.

Yeah, thanks for having me guys.

My name is Doctor Milan Patel. I am a general non invasive cardiologist here with Adventist HealthCare Cardiac Associates. So, I split my time between the office and the hospital, as well as the general floors and the ICU, seeing patients all over.

All right, wonderful. Well, we are excited to have you and let's get into it. What are some of the surprising or silent things that we do that add up over time and, you know, hurt our heart health?

Yeah, so I think some of the most surprising habits that people overlook that quietly harm the heart are the ones that we do in daily life. Prolonged sitting, long commutes, they all reduce our circulation and contribute to higher blood pressure, poor cholesterol levels, and even if you exercise later, that still may not be enough. Other things that I think about on a day to day basis are skipping meals, eating irregularly. All those things can disrupt our normal routine during the day and can impact even later on during the week. Chronic stress, poor sleep, even constant digital distractions quietly raise our heart rate and our blood pressure over time.

Even all these seemingly small behaviors, like consistently rushing, you know, neglecting hydration, drinking water throughout the day, you know, early signs of fatigue, all those cumulatively build up and increase our cardiovascular risks.

You know, the commute one just so resonates with me.

Washington DC area, think is just nationally known for terrible traffic. And we all sit in it and I sit for like an hour going into work and an hour coming home from work. And I get stressed out because of the traffic. And I never thought about the effect it'll have on my heart. I just never even thought about it. Yeah.

And it's multiple hours a day, right? Every single day.

Yes. And then I come in and I sit at my desk.

And I just don't even think about it. So, it's really eye opening to me and makes me wanna work harder.

So, are some of the habits that, you know, they may seem good on the surface, but they're really not?

Yeah, so I think some of important things nowadays, especially as we increasingly have screens everywhere and more information everywhere in front of us at the touch of a button, I think having that screen time can be both positive and negative, actually. It's great to have that information at your fingertips. It's great to be able to keep in touch with each other and other people around. But having that, you know, at odd times, or having it multiple times throughout the day disrupting our routine, I think can be a negative actually.

Yeah, I think about it at night, when you're at home, and you're taking that breath, maybe the kids are asleep or you're just, you take that time and you're like, I'm just going to sit here and I'm going to relax and you pull up your phone and you start to scroll. And I start to think to myself when I do it, I'm like, I should be walking right now and not doing this.

And next thing you know, it's forty five minutes.

It is, yes, you get lost in it. And you forget that you just now been sitting and you've gotten your blood pressure up because you're seeing something on social media that stresses you out.

So it's such a good reminder.

I think some people also like look toward like junk food when they're, you know, at night and with that late night snack. Besides the obvious junk food, what are some other food that may be harmful for your heart?

Especially in the past few years, especially in the healthcare industry, I think a lot of people were turning to quick fixes. And, you know, in the past there were things just like five hour energy and things that had niacin, caffeine, things like that. Nowadays all those energy drinks are being branded as being either probiotic or healthy and I think that can be a little misleading because checking those labels, actually see one hundred milligrams of caffeine, two hundred milligrams of caffeine, and then people say, Oh, I only have one a day, and one a day per each week actually builds up, and can actually have very negative effects on the heart. We're seeing that in a lot of younger people actually.

Time will tell how that impacts them in the future decades from now, but they are starting to see the effects of that short term as well.

You know, there's you just talked about the energy, energy drinks, and there's always new health fads out there. We hear a lot about fasting.

How does that work when it comes to your heart health?

Yeah, so I definitely think there are benefits to regimented consistent fasting, things like intermittent fasting and studies, negative studies on it. I think that sticking to those consistent diets will help more than choosing one versus the other. Obviously some have benefits and some are not as healthy for you, things that we talk about, you know, the DASH diet, Mediterranean diets is another more popular one. But I think the key is being consistent with your diet and making sure that you build small, you know, using small building blocks to actually build a foundation for that diet rather than it being a fad.

And it's, sticking with it, making the healthy choices and not every diet. I'm gonna I'm saying quotation marks diet, right? Because you can't see me but and I don't necessarily like that term either. But it's just eating more healthy or incorporating more healthy habits. And everybody's different. So they're gonna follow what works for them consistently.

I like Consistency, because I think people try to do too much, you know, fast maybe, and they now stick to it, or they may not work for their schedule. But I think something that works for them and taking the small increments to build upon is probably the right strategy.

Yeah. One thing we don't talk about a lot is sleep.

How does poor sleep, good sleep?

What's the recommendations out there around heart health for sleep?

Yeah, I think sleep is probably the most underrated and probably one of the more important aspects of our heart health. And you see it long term, you can't always see it in the moment, especially day to day, know, are crutches we can use on a day to day basis. You know, we talked about energy drink, talked about having heart healthy foods, things like that, that can actually help kind of temporize and band aid day to day that we may not see long term. So I think sleep has a major impact on our long term heart health. And we can see that especially with things like sleep apnea, higher blood pressure, even a much, much higher risk of stroke.

And those are things that we're seeing nowadays, especially as our workforce gets more, we'll say efficient, but also is working longer hours, working longer during the week, taking work home, think is another thing that some of my colleagues talk about on a regular basis, especially in the healthcare industry, but across all industries. Everybody takes work home to a certain degree.

And I think that can impact how much time we have available for sleep, and the kind of quality that we get for How many hours do you recommend that people should sleep in a typical night?

There are a lot of studies that have been done, and I think on average they say about eight hours is the sweet spot, but an eight hours for one person, maybe a seven for someone else.

Typically less than that, I think we're getting into the territory of sleep debt, but on average around eight. So typically the range I tell my patients is seven to nine hours is a good spot. Sometimes that may not be feasible every night, you know, in some professions that just may not be an option. So even if we're on the lower end of that, think is still enough for long term heart health and benefits.

He's mentioned sleep debt. And was thinking, you know, if you're running, running, running all week, and you're like, I'll make it up on the weekend, and then you kind of oversleep or Well, that's exactly it.

Sleep six hours, one night, next next day, you're like, I'll sleep twelve hours. And it like has the opposite effect, I'm assuming.

Yeah. So like consistency is better versus trying to make it up somewhere else.

Absolutely. Because even if we have a sleep debt during the week and you're trying to make it up on the weekend, one, most times that may not even be an option. You're still busy on the weekends, if you have kids, job, other activities, vacation, things like that, travel.

So making it up on the weekend might not be feasible. And on top of that, if you do sleep more actually, and try to make up, say twelve hours or thirteen hours, you can actually feel less well rested. It's not quality sleep actually that you're getting for all of those hours.

We talk about all these different things that improve your heart health and make it sound very complicated. But it really comes down to just consistency, right? Consistency, making better choices that fit your lifestyle can really make a difference. Yeah.

So how do we break out of some of these routines? What are some advice that you have and that you may have come across in your practice?

Especially as you recommend, like, you know, you've mentioned something about taking work from home, working at And then you talked about like, you know, having screen time at night before You may be like just stuck in that routine.

How do you break that cycle?

Yeah, so I think like we hit the nail on the head with consistency and I think it's about building small habits over time.

If you try to do too many things, you know, all at once or make changes in five different aspects of your life, that may be great. You could do that for a week or two, but then something will come up. You'll get busy another day, you'll miss one of those routines. Then two and then three, and then all of a sudden you're finding yourself falling back into your old routine, which may not be healthy. So I think it's kind of funny, we use our phones, our laptops to write things down. But I think actually physically writing things down, you know, having a notebook, having a journal, I think is actually crucial because one, it detaches you from the internet. And two, it gives you a place where you can comfortably in your own space, write down what your goals are and go back to it and nothing will change there.

And there won't be anything distracting ads or anything like that.

So it can be an easier way for you to connect with yourself and make sure you have that personal time.

Some people decide to, you know, meditate and things like that, which actually also, you know, gives them a little bit of time to detach. And I think building those habits on your own on your own foundation is really, really crucial.

I love that. And you don't have to pick fifty things right away. You can pick something small like, you know, for me, my long commute, balance out my long commute. I try to at least with walking thirty minutes, you know, a day, I try to find that time in the evening, and make it enjoyable too. So, like, that's just one small thing that I try to balance out instead of trying to do it all at once.

Or taking the steps in our office building that we have ran into each other multiple did.

Even and I have ran into each other, although I have to say I'm not consistent. So I have to get back to that.

So if we start making these habits, these changes today, me personally, I'm approaching forty. So I'm thinking about these things that again, is it too late? Is it too early? Like, is it gonna make an impact in my life even if I've made some small changes? What's your recommendation on that?

My phrase is never too late to make changes. It's always the right time.

I think it's breaking out of these routines and making it normal that kind of helps us and going forward. You know, think starting by identifying one habit is a good starting place, and then prioritizing that and building on it, building as a block. Other things that I tell patients is don't chase perfection, just chase an attainable goal. And an attainable goal for one person may be different than another, and that's okay.

We're not competing against each other. I think it's more important to kind of look back and compare to where we came from. And if you're looking at yourself from a year ago, two years ago, can you say that you've made positive changes? I think that's a more accurate comparison for the individual person rather than looking at everyone else kind of comparing in that way.

Love that. That's great. I do. I love that.

All right. Anything else you want to add before we close out?

I think I would just say that one of the most important things to keep in mind is, you know, there's the old adage, practice makes perfect. And I actually tell my patients practice can make perfect, but practice makes permanent. And when you practice things every day, it becomes a permanence in your life, whether it's, you know, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, or getting a walk in before work or after work or getting to the gym consistently and doing things like that. So I think practice can make perfect, but instead focus on making practice, making permanent.

I love that. That's a great way to end.

Yeah, I agree.

All right. Well, we usually ask what is your one tip for a happy, healthy, heart healthy life at the end of all of our episodes, but I think you just said that. I think you just kind of gave us a great tip.

This was excellent. I'm walking away with some things to think about.

I sure am too.

Thank you, Doctor Patel. This is wonderful.

To find information about our expert today, visit adventisthecare.com and you can click on Find a Doctor to search. We'll also put some information about Doctor Patel and where to find him in our in our show notes for today. If you want to learn your risk for heart disease, you can also take our heart health risk assessment at AdventistHealthcare.com/loveyourheart.

And we'd always love to hear from our listeners. You can let us know if you like the podcast by rating it or giving it a review. And you can also email podcastadventishealthcare.com and let us know what healthcare topics you want to know more about. Thank you, Doctor.

Patel. You'll come back, right?

Thank you guys so much for having me.

Doctor Wonderful. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so you get new episodes. Thank you and be well.