You know the saying “use it or lose it?” This is great advice for improving your basketball game, your trivia skills, or any of your other hobbies.

However, this advice also holds true for more impactful life skills—such as saving lives.

“Use it or lose it” can apply to getting CPR recertification. If you had CPR certification before, pursuing Red Cross CPR online renewal can make a positive impact on your life.

If you’re wondering why you should renew CPR certification, consider these reasons. We bet you’ll want to renew CPR certification after reading them.

You need to renew CPR certification regularly.

You might think it inconvenient to have to renew your certification so often. And since you can renew CPR certification in under an hour, you get two years’ worth of certified skills for only an hour’s worth of effort. That’s a small investment to pay for potentially life-saving skills.

CPR classes online are made available for this very reason. The ease of renewal ensures you’re kept up-to-date with current health standards. Because the more out of practice you are, the higher the chance you might forget something crucial when helping someone. You need your CPR certification to stay current in case of emergencies.

CPR adds easily to your skillset.

Just like any other hobby, your adult CPR knowledge and technique can get rusty with disuse. However, it doesn’t take much to regain your skills—you won’t even have to leave your home! With CPR online renewal, you can get a great set of skills for little time or monetary investment.

If you pride yourself on being a well-rounded individual, getting recertified in a CPR AED course should be at the top of your list. Besides your own personal gratification, expanding your skills beyond CPR can help your professional life too. You can get qualified CPR recertification for healthcare providers from SimpleCPR to expand your work skillset. Consider our other courses for more experience, including certified Red Cross first aid training.

You could save someone’s life.

Do you have skills that can really make a difference?

It goes without saying that having the ability to save someone can make a positive impact on everyone’s lives. You might save a perfect stranger. Or you could save someone you care about. No matter who may be in trouble, you’ll know just what to do. And you won’t have to worry about endangering someone’s life due to outdated practices.

What to Do Next

When someone starts choking and becomes unresponsive, will you have what it takes to help?

When you renew your CPR card online, you get more than knowledge—you get the skills and confidence to make a difference. So when you say to yourself, “Okay—I’m ready to renew my CPR certification online,” we hope you’ll choose us, SimpleCPR, to help you meet your needs.

Because you need to know how to renew CPR certification not only for your own benefit but for the lives you may save. And that’s one hobby that will never get old!

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation, commonly known as CPR, is a medical response to cardiac arrest that began in the early 1900s. Starting as an attempt to rescue drowning victims, CPR was not fully developed in its modern form until 1960. Since that time, medical boards have worked to further understand and improve upon CPR as a life saving tool. The CPR guidelines that are published every five years by the American Heart Association (AHA) for CPR and ECC (emergency cardiovascular care) are a major part of this refining process, and work to standardize the training and performance standards of CPR.

Many changes have been made to the CPR process over the years, most notably the addition of pediatric guidelines in the 1980s, the advent of the public-access AED in the 1990s, as well as the development of the Family and Friends® CPR Anytime® kit in 2005. Official CPR guidelines are extremely important when it comes to teaching CPR and standardizing its practice to ensure the safest, most effective result. All CPR training centers must follow these guidelines at all times, and anyone who will be teaching CPR as a trainer must demonstrate his or her thorough knowledge of current, official CPR practices.

Even though the official AHA CPR guidelines are only published every five years following the International Consensus on ECC and CPR Science with Treatment Recommendations (CoSTR) Conference, the American Heart Association will release statements during the intermediate years, if necessary. This generally occurs if new research allows for a better understanding of effective CPR procedures, such as the 2008 statement regarding compression-only CPR for bystanders who have witnessed a collapse.

Now in 2015 we get to look forward to the latest installment of the AHA CPR guidelines that are due to come out this fall. Although it seems unlikely that there will be any major changes, given the recent push toward bystander compression-only CPR it would be no surprise if this year’s CPR guidelines made an effort to emphasize compression cycles without ventilation.

For more information on official CPR training and what a class entails, visit SimpleCPR’s FAQ page.

Fitting advanced first aid online classes into your daily life can be harder than you think. You may find it hard to get motivated when you’re working on how to get a first aid certificate on your own time.

We at SimpleCPR have compiled a list of essential information before you attempt to get first aid only certification. By preparing beforehand, you’ll be perfectly equipped to get certified first aid for professionals.

Follow these steps and you’ll learn how to get a first aid certificate the easy way—by being prepared!

1. Make time for your classes.

Sure, taking first aid courses online from the comfort of your own home sounds easy. But your home is full of distractions. How to get a first aid certificate when so much else demands your attention?

Working a specific amount of time at the same time every day can build discipline. Whether that’s when you get home from work or during your lunch break, following a schedule will help you manage your certified first aid course.

2. Keep note-taking materials close-by.

Your classes may be online, but you can use non-digital materials to make your task easier—especially when it comes time to take your exam. When your very own copy of first aid certificate is on the line, you should allow yourself to use all your resources.

Keep a notepad and pen close at hand. You can write down important information related to how to get a first aid certificate as you learn it. This way, you won’t have to worry about searching for the info somewhere else and getting distracted.

3. Prepare to Practice, Practice, Practice!

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.”

This popular proverb is handy advice—especially when getting first aid training online. Online courses are offered at your own pace, and you should take advantage of that. This means preparing yourself mentally for a lot of do-overs.

When you choose SimpleCPR for your CPR and first aid training, you can retake—for free—as many exams as you need. This way, all your time is spent valuably, as you can use what you learned and apply it to the next exam.

4. Remind yourself what you’re working for.

As with anything difficult, keeping your goals in mind can help you through any rough spots. Ultimately, when you reach the end of your course, you’ll have the capability to save lives.

Are you prepared for how to get a first aid certificate?

Keep this page bookmarked before you take first aid online. Whether as a handy reference or as a preparation guide, these steps can help you get first aid certified online.