Helping Employees with Heart Health for Better Overall Wellness

If you close your eyes and imagine a color to represent February, what would it be?

While February is a time for red roses and romantic dinners, it’s also a chance to raise awareness about the importance of heart health. And although we love to celebrate the ones we love on the 14th, February is also when we celebrate American Heart Month.

Millions of Americans die every year from heart disease and heart-related illnesses. But, as many may assume, heart disease isn’t only affecting older populations. In fact, it’s increasing in younger adults at a more frequent rate. This is partly due to the fact that conditions leading to heart disease are happening at younger and younger ages. High rates of obesity and high blood pressure among younger people ages 34-64 is on the rise and putting them at risk for heart disease earlier in life. Understanding your risk factors and making adjustments can help decrease the risk of heart-related illness.

What could put you at risk:

High blood pressure: Millions of Americans of all ages have high blood pressure. Having uncontrolled high blood pressure is one of the biggest risks for heart disease and other harmful conditions such as stroke.
Diabetes: Diabetes causes sugar to build up in the blood. This can damage blood vessels and nerves that help control the heart muscle. Nearly 1/10 people in the U.S. has diabetes.
Smoking: More than 37 million U.S. adults are current smokers. The rise of vaping as an alternative to smoking has also been linked to heart attacks and coronary artery disease.
High blood cholesterol: Obesity, smoking, having diabetes, eating unhealthy foods and not getting enough exercise can lead to high cholesterol which could lead to heart disease, heart attack or stroke.

February is a great time to promote healthy activities in the workplace. We dedicate our entire wellness campaign efforts to education and activities centered on heart health to better prepare our employees and give them the tools they need to understand their heart health.

First, we send out a simple questionnaire to all our employees and provide free blood pressure checks at our office locations. Throughout the month, we send out educational material addressing the questions on the questionnaire to help our employees understand their heart health. Those who participate in the questionnaire and blood pressure checks get a branded t-shirt in partnership with the American Heart Association. The t-shirts provide an incentive, and our employees wear them with pride the rest of the year which creates excitement and boosts participation for next year.

Watch more about what we do to encourage healthy behaviors during heart month and all year long.

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