Heart of the City Initiative – New health initiative for Dublin 8, Craig has the details…
Heart Of The City is a new program for anyone based in Dublin 8 who wants to improve the health of their heart. Many of us at some point in our life will suffer from heart disease, and this new initiative aims to make people more aware of the issue. Currently there are around 90,000 people in Ireland suffering from some type of heart disease. It is usually something we become more prone to as we get older but it can happen at any age.
Heart Of The City is being run in collaboration with the Smart D8 project, which is focused on increasing well-being in the Dublin 8 area, along with the Irish heart foundation and pharmaceutical company Novartis.
Many of the supports on offer are informative. They have put together a booklet on heart health which anyone can download from their website.
It asks people to consider making changes to their diet; to eat what’s good for your heart: whole grain foods, eating fruit and vegetables every day, having oily fish once a week, and to avoid what’s bad: any foods and drinks with a lot of sugar, crisps, cakes and biscuits.
The leaflet also encourages people to be more active, to give up smoking and reduce sitting time. With the pandemic, and with more people working from home, technology can often leave us living a more sedentary life (living a life-style with a lot more sitting and lying down). Many of us are not getting enough exercise.
Exercise has become something people have to be more deliberate about. To help with this the Heart Of The City is encouraging access to better ways at keeping active. It calls this social prescribing, which is when a health worker or community worker connects people to non-medical services in their local area such as yoga, gardening, dance classes or cookery classes.
This is because keeping your heart healthy doesn’t just depend on medical intervention, it can also have a lot to do with mental health. People who are suffering from a high degree of stress are more likely to develop problems with their heart, or suffer a stroke. Social activities, new learning experiences, or just getting out for a day can help to relieve stress.
The website is open for contact from people looking to fundraise or take on challenges, and will have events in the near future. It also has plenty of recipes for food that will help keep you ticking.
Sometimes making that healthy change can feel very drastic. But you don’t have to give up everything, there are replacement meals and recipes for things that keep the sweetness without having the negative health side-effects.
Anyone who wants to know more can visit the website for Heart of the City at:
