Your weight

Obesity, as well as the complications linked to it (including high blood pressure and diabetes), raises your odds of having a stroke. If you're overweight, losing as little as 10 pounds can have a real impact on your stroke risk. Being overweight may raise your chances of having a stroke drastically. There are a lot of complications connected to obesity that influence your physical health negatively (diabetes and high blood pressure for example, those are explained later in this article). We advise you to try our  BMI calculator in order to check if your weight is right.

Smoking

Cigarette smoke contains a lot of tar, which accelerates the formation of the clots in a couple of different ways. First of all, it thickens your blood.

Physical activity

Exercising is one of the best ways to prevent the stroke. It may be considered an antidote for most of the issues described in this article. It contributes to lowering your blood pressure or losing weight. It is important to exercise regurarly and not necessarily very intensively. If you are unfit, it is advised for you to start having around 30 minute walks. As the time passes, you can increase the intensity of the exercises - for example: start running, join a fitness club. Doing it with your friends is a very good idea, you will keep yourselves motivated all the time and it will be harder for you to find excuses for exercising.

Alcohol consumption

Heavy and regular drinking increases the risk of the stroke drastically. However, small amounts of alcohol may even reduce the chance of you getting a stroke. Red wine would be your best choice, since it contains resveratrol, which positively affects the functioning of your heart and brain.

Diabetes

Because high sugar levels in your blood damages blood vessels on the long run, clots are much more likely to form inside them. If you are a diabetic, always monitor your sugar levels. Take your medicine, exercise and follow your diet as advised by the doctor.

(source: various Internes resources, modified and adapted by Robert Gałąska)