It's a pretty well-known belief that taking an aspirin a day will reduce your risk of stroke. Actually, it's pretty much regarded as a proven fact, although this thinking might have to be changed as it's also being said that aspirin may in fact increase your chance of a stroke. According to experts, the risks associated with aspirin outweigh the benefits, though the risks of taking aspirin are not specified. Nonetheless, I think it's bad practice to take any sort of drug every day unless ordered by your doctor.

This just goes to show that you can't believe everything you read or hear, even if it is regarded as fact.

We humans are masters at the art of excuses, especially when it comes to doing something good for our body. We don't have time, we think we're coming down with something, our families don't adapt to change well, etc. Sound familiar? Well, what would you do if I told you that all it takes is 10 minutes to make your heart healthy? Surely you can spare 10 minutes of the 1440 we have each day?

As reported on our sister site, That's Fit, that's all it takes -- 10 minutes a day of cardiovascular exercise to significantly improve your heart health. This only applies if you currently don't get any exercise, by the way. If you're already getting an hour of activity a day, it won't help if you drop down to just 10 minutes a day unfortunately.

So how do you fill the 10 minutes? As Bethany points out, walk for five minutes, then turn around and walk back. Or do jumping jacks during the commercial breaks of 24. Or whatever. Just do something. Anything. You owe it to your ticker, and your loved ones too.

When you're working out, do you ever notice those hard-core gym fanatics seem to all have heart-rate monitors on? No? Maybe it's just my gym. But I see them so much that I've started to wonder whether I need one.

Heart rate monitors aren't a bad investment, but as fitsugar points out, they're usually more for keeping track of your workout than your heart. You know those heart-rate charts they have all over the gym? Well, in a nutshell, they're telling you what your heart rate should be at depending on what you're aiming for. For cardio-vascular conditioning, your heart-rate should be a bit higher than if, say, you're trying to burn fat. So the heart rate monitor helps you monitor that, and it's a heck of a lot easier than trying to count your pulse while your running on the treadmill.

I don't think I'll be buying one anytime soon, since all the machines seem to have one anyway. What about you?