Heart attacks are scary, period. They are scary for those who are having one and scary for those who are watching. Of course, eating right and exercising help reduce your risk of a heart attack, but do you know what to do if and when one strikes?
Heart Attack Symptoms in Women
If you think you’re having a heart attack. For women, symptoms are often easily ignored. These can include:
- Pressure, tightness and squeezing pain across the chest
- Pain radiating down one or both arms or shoulders
- Pain or soreness in the jaw, neck, or back
- Shortness of breath
- Dizziness, lightheadedness, sweating or weakness
- Overwhelming fatigue – 70% of women felt fatigued in days or weeks prior to their heart attacks
- The feeling of impending doom
- Headache, blurry vision, lightheadedness or feeling faint
- Gastrointestinal symptoms such as indigestion, nausea, and vomiting
- Coughing and palpitations
Heart Attack Symptoms in Men
Most Common Symptoms
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Feels like pressure, squeezing, fullness, or pain in the center or left side of the chest.
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Can last more than a few minutes or come and go.
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Upper body pain
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Pain or discomfort in one or both arms, the back, neck, jaw, or stomach.
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Shortness of breath
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May occur with or without chest discomfort.
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Often described as feeling like you can’t catch your breath.
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Cold sweat
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Sudden, clammy perspiration that feels unusual or out of context (not from heat or exertion).
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Nausea or vomiting
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Some men experience indigestion-like discomfort or may actually vomit.
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Lightheadedness or dizziness
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Feeling faint or weak, often combined with chest discomfort.
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Less Common (but still possible) Symptoms
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Unusual fatigue or weakness
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Heart palpitations (irregular or fast heartbeat)
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A sense of impending doom or anxiety
Men are more likely than women to experience the “classic” heart attack symptom — chest pain — but they may also overlook subtle signs or mistake them for indigestion, muscle strain, or stress.
3 Ingredients That Help Stop a Heart Attack
No one specific food can stop a heart attack that is already in progress, but there are some things you can ingest to keep on hand to fight a heart attack.
- Aspirin. Always keep a bottle of aspirin in your bathroom medicine cabinet. If you think you’re having a heart attack, take one 325mg tablet of adult aspirin. Chew it — don’t just swallow it. It allows aspirin to enter your bloodstream faster and slows the progression of a heart attack.
- Cayenne Pepper. Cayenne pepper is a powerful stimulant; it increases heart rate and carries blood to all parts of the body, balancing circulation. Cayenne pepper has a hemostatic effect, stops bleeding instantly, and helps in heart attack recovery. If you have cayenne pepper at home, give the person having a heart attack a teaspoon of cayenne pepper in a glass of water. The patient has to be conscious for this to work. If the person is unconscious, you can use cayenne pepper extract. Put a few drops under the patient’s tongue for results.
- Fiber-Rich Carbs: Everyone talks about eating vegetables and dark fruits like blueberries to help improve your circulation, but don’t forget to choose 100% whole grains (quinoa, brown rice, oatmeal) and starchy vegetables (sweet potatoes, squash). A typical serving of oatmeal provides about 4-5 grams of fiber, which gets people closer to the 25 to 38 grams of fiber they should eat per day. But only 5% of the U.S. population eats the recommended amount of fiber, the National Institutes of Health notes, missing out on important health benefits.
Beta-glucan fiber, the type of soluble fiber in oats, “actually clings to cholesterol the body and takes out the bad (LDL) cholesterol,” registered dietitian Natalie Rizzo, nutrition editor for TODAY, previously explained.
Diets naturally rich in fiber also reduce hypertension, or high blood pressure, according to Cardiology. There’s “compelling evidence” dietary fiber prevents the development of cardiovascular disease, researchers note.
Also, this is not an ingredient, but it’s needed in this emergency: your cell phone. Finally, after the aspirin, you’ll need to get help and go to a hospital immediately. That’s why I want you to keep your cellphone with you in the bathroom. You can purchase a cheap cellphone mount and put it on your wall. The best place to put it is on the side of a bathroom cabinet or low on the wall near your toilet.
Extra Tip: To further decrease your risk of a heart attack, you should also keep vitamin D in your medicine cabinet. Many of us are vitamin D-deficient, and new research on supplements and heart disease suggests promising results from taking vitamin D to prevent heart disease. Vitamin D can help regulate blood pressure, inflammation and blood sugar.
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