More Sleep, Exercise, Less Sitting Can Help Lower Risk

According to the American Heart Association (AHA), about one in five people who have experienced a heart attack will have another within 5 years.

"Even those survivors who receive the most advanced treatments and medications still have significant risk. That's why it's urgent to find additional ways to reduce this risk," Diaz explained.

Adding to this list is a new study recently published in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes — for which Diaz is the lead author — which reports that people who are too sedentary after experiencing a heart attack are at a higher risk of having another one or another cardiovascular event.

However, they can lower their risk of a secondary cardiovascular event by replacing 30 minutes of sedentary behavior with light-intensity or moderate to vigorous-intensity physical activity, or sleep.

"In our previous research , we noticed that a number of heart attack survivors were quite fearful of exercise," Diaz said. "Many of the bodily sensations of intense exercise can remind survivors of their heart attack, causing them to fear and avoid it. As a result, we were finding that many survivors were extremely sedentary, spending over 13 hours a day sitting."

Reference: Found here