The month of love is a busy time spent with family and friends. But amidst the swamp of activities, you must never forget to practice self-love. Taking care of your mental and physical health, especially your heart, is as important as expressing your affection to those around you.

It is about time to embrace healthier lifestyle habits and focus on your cardiovascular health. High blood pressure or hypertension is a common risk factor of heart disease. Here are some nutrition tips towards improving heart health.

1. Consider DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) as your nutrition plan.
The DASH was developed to reduce blood pressure and encourage consumption of heart-healthy foods. This encourages consumption of whole grains, fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, fat-free dairy, fish, and poultry. Having these foods in your diet can also increase your potassium, calcium, magnesium, and fiber intake. When possible, choose foods that are low in saturated fat, sodium, and sugar.

2. Make the shift.
Change can happen gradually; it does not need to be an all-or-nothing process. Start with one or two of these easier dietary adjustments:

• Switch some of your daily processed snacks to heart-healthy options such as fruit, raw or steamed vegetables, nuts or seeds, fat-free yogurt, or unsalted popcorn.
• Add a serving of vegetables to your lunch or dinner.
• Have fruit or dark chocolate for dessert.
• Try out “meatless days” to get used to more plant-based proteins. For the rest of the week, eat lean meats and fish.

3. Reduce sodium.

• Choose low-sodium or no-salt-added versions of foods.
• Eat fresh foods, when you can, rather than processed, canned, or frozen meals. If you do eat canned foods, rinse the food before consumption to remove some of the excess salt.
• Make use of salt-free seasoning blends to get all the flavor and none of the sodium.

4. Eat potassium-rich foods.
Add potassium to your diet to offset some of the harmful effects of excess sodium. Some of potassium-rich whole foods include bananas, oranges, cherries, avocados, leafy green vegetables, sweet potatoes, beans, nuts, and salmon.