Imaging you're sitting at home, it's a regular day, you just had a nice dinner, and opened a nice bottle of wine. Then all of a sudden it hits — chest pain. Like nothing you've felt before.

The pain sits there, it's tight, nothing really makes it better. You make the decision to go to the hospital, once you get there, the ED doc seems concerned, he calls the cardiologist and they whisk you away for a procedure.

You had a tight blockage in one of your arteries that needed a stent placed in it. You had a heart attack and the doctors say they got to it just in time. As you lay there thinking, you're wondering how this happened, you were healthy and never had any issues before. How could this have happened?

I've had a number of patient's tell me this story. Heart disease can jump out of the blue like that without any warning. One day things are fine and then overnight patient's lives can change. Then they're left reeling asking questions like

• "How could this have happened?"

• "Why did this happen to me?"

• "What do I do now?"

As doctors, we prescribe a lot of medicines to combat effects of high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other poor health problems.

1. There's the "statin" (like atorvastatin aka Lipitor, or rosuvastatin aka Crestor) to fight cholesterol.

2. The metoprolol (sometimes called metro-polol, metro-polo, metro-popol, meto-prolol) or carvedilol help keep the heart rate from going too fast and the blood pressure from going to high.

3. There's a medicine called lisinopril that is used to keep your blood pressure down and to help your heart in the healing process.

4. There's usually a medicine called clopirogrel (plavix), ticagrelor (brilinta), or prasugrel (effient) that's used to keep blood clots from forming in your new hardware (stents).

The medicines help a lot. But something we don't say enough or maybe doesn't get enough emphasis, is that these medicines only do so much. There is no substitute for taking care of yourself and adopting a healthy lifestyle.

What does taking care of yourself mean?

There are four big things that will drop your chance of dying in half (technically 40% decrease) and your chance of having a heart attack by a quarter (29% decrease for the nerds). There are a lot of medicines we prescribe that do not and will not give you this much bang for your buck (pharmaceutical industries spend millions of dollars to develop medicines that give <10% difference in mortality or improvement in symptoms but thats a conversation for another day.) Here are four habits to lead you to a healthier life:

1. Not smoking - If you're smoker, this is the best thing you can do for your health, full stop.

2. A healthy weight (BMI less than 25)

3. Eating 5 servings of fruits or vegetables daily

4. Exercising (more than 150 minutes per week) - This doesn't need to be complicated. I'd start with creating the habit of walking for this much each week then gradually increase intensity once you've created the habit.

Surprisingly not many people seem to be able to check all of these things off of their checklist. There are doctors that don't hit all of these and I think that is a travesty; Only three percent of Americans are able (or willing) to do it. I agree that taking pills is much easier than doing all four of these but, like I said before, you don't get as much bang for your buck. Medicines don't work as well as the aforementioned list in combination. Plus, there are a whole bunch of side benefits to living healthier like lower risks of dementia, looking better in the mirror, or huge savings from not buying cigarettes.

I know it's not as sexy or cool as a fancy new multivitamin, but you can't get more "all-natural" than this. Don't fall for the nonsense that circulates on social media that is simply trying to sell you something. Listen to people that are not asking for your money (like me).

If you're not doing or working on any of the big four habits, I'd recommend starting on one of them until you've built up one of the habits. Only then move onto another habit. Don't bite off more than you can chew, you'll get burnt out, and rebound hard.

Don't be like my patients. So many patients get scared senseless after their first heart attack as if somehow they were exempt from having one. Just because I've never had a heart attack doesn't mean I never will. This stuff can happen to you.

Don't let stuff like this sneak up on you. Take care of yourself now so you're not forced to later. Remember: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

You only get one heart (sometimes two) don't waste it.