 Hello friends, I am Dr. Monik Mehta, the Chief of Cardiology at Manipal Hospital, Gurgaon. Today is an opportunity for me to interact with you all and I thought let's talk about how to keep our heart healthy in these difficult times. We have undergone and fought the COVID the first and the second wave successfully and now we are on the progress to our returning to our regular lives. But we should not let our guard down and I thought let's talk about a few tips on how to keep our heart healthy during the times going forward. Now this is not to this is just basic tips and this does not supplant your the existing advice by your treating doctor. So let's talk about a few basic tips. The first is choosing a healthy heart diet. We should be focusing on plant-based foods and unprocessed foods and shun the especially the processed foods. You should be maintaining a normal body weight and the best way to to gauge one's body weight is by calculating it using a formula which is called as the BMI. This is freely available on the net you just have to calculate your BMI by putting in your height and weight and you get a result which and the normal BMI is supposed to be between around 19 to 24 and I would we as doctors recommend that the BMI should be around in the mid part of that. So in case anybody is overweight we should try and come back to a normal range. The next important point is to exercise and in this we should try and make it a habit to exercise daily. It should be minimum to about half an hour in a day and one should aim for at least five days a week. The intensity of the exercise is as per one's individual's comfort factor. The idea is not to work yourself to death but to maintain a brisk space of an intensity of exercise. Maintaining a good hydrated state of the body is also important. So one should drink a lot of liquids, drink a lot of water and keep your systems going fully flushed with fluids. The next important point is getting enough sleep. In our present day hectic life life schedules this is a casualty that we tend to ignore and and it's very important that women should have at least seven to eight hours of short eye sleep in our 24 hour period. There are various apps by which which can help us in getting a grip on how much we are sleeping and if one needs support of that one can use that but the bottom line is that seven to eight hours should be our goal for having a good night's sleep. And this is going to energize our body and recharge our batteries so that we are able to be fit for the battle of the day ahead. Now let's talk about vices. Don't smoke there is no place for smoking at all in in our in our heart health and it's an absolute no-no regarding food and alcohol the recommendation is one should have everything in moderation and one should not over indulge in either of these two things. One should follow your doctor's advice religiously and one should be also up to date with our vaccination protocols. The COVID vaccination protocols are very well laid out. The first and second doses are mandatory and those who have still noted completed their vaccinations for for whatever the reason is but I would strongly recommend that you should complete your vaccinations. Now coming to the third dose there is a lot of controversy and a lot of queries and doubt about the third dose at the moment it is recommended only for even a compromised people for the general public in India at least the guidelines have yet to be laid out and I'm sure that once the regulatory bodies and all our scientists are at work to give us the way forward regarding the third dosage. The last important point and this is very important for our heart health as well as for our mental health and that is about social distancing. Now in COVID times we have all learned about physical social distancing but we tend to sometimes go overboard and we end up in being emotionally isolated and this has a very adverse effect on our mental health as well as on our physical health. So the takeaway is that one should maintain social physical distancing but your emotional contact connect with your friends with your near and dear and your relatives should be strengthened and so that our emotional connection is maintained and this thereby helps us in our our mental well-being as well as it also adds to making our heart healthy and strong. With that I would like to close this short talk that we have had and I'm sure that we will be meeting again. I wish you all the health and keep strong. Thank you.