A healthy lifestyle can keep and improve people’s health and well-being. Scientifically, this makes our lives longer, which is what most people would like to have. To start with, here are five practical ways to adopt a more healthy lifestyle.
5 practical ways to adopt a more healthy lifestyle
- Have a Healthy Diet
- Indulge Physical activities
- Sleep
- Manage Stress
- Seek happiness
1. Have a Healthy Diet
A healthy diet includes intaking vitamins such as vitamins A, B, C, D, E, and K; minerals such as calcium, potassium, and iron; protein that can be found in fish, meat, poultry, dairy products, eggs, nuts, and beans; carbohydrates that can be found in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and beans and other legumes; fat that can be found in animal and dairy products, nuts, and oils; and water both in what you drink and what’s naturally in food.
Don’t make yourself food deprived just because you’re afraid of getting calories from eating. You can mix fruits, vegetables and your cheat food with the help of your kitchenwares like stand mixers and blenders.. There is no need to cut your calories too much. What you need to do is make sure that you have properly taken essential nutrients that your body needs. The calories you should get per day depends on your goal, your age, your sex, and how active you are.
2. Indulge Physical activities
There are many researches prove that doing exercise regularly can reduce all of the biomarkers of aging. Exercising regularly can improve lean muscle, lower cholesterol, improve bone density, normalize blood pressure and improve eyesight. If you want to live well and live longer, you must exercise!
Other studies also show that just ten minutes of exercise can already make a difference. Get out from your sedentary lifestyle and do something. Walk to the park with your kids or a neighbor you’d like to catch up with. Do leg raises while reading a book on your bed. Clean your house. Do sit-ups while taking a shower. Do some grooves while cooking. Bike to work. Air or wall sit while typing on your computer. Pace while talking on the phone. Hit your treadmill or dumbells while watching news. In short, you cannot make any excuses.
3. Sleep!
Sleep plays an important role in your physical health. It is involved in healing and repair of your heart and blood vessels. A continuous sleep deficiency may increase the risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke.
There are many things you can try if you are having a hard time sleeping. Darken your room more and turn your clock away from you. You can do some relaxation techniques like meditation and yoga. You can also have a small bedtime snack of food like whole grain cereal with milk, oatmeal, cherries, or chamomile tea that can help your body and mind shift into sleep mode. You should avoid caffeine.
4. Manage Stress
Managing stress is significant. It in can help us to improve our judgement and see things clearly. Having a chat and sharing things with a friend, work colleague, or even a trained professional, can help you find solutions to your stress and put your problems into perspective.
Also, learning how to find solutions to your problems will help you feel more in control, hence lowering your level of stress. Writing down the problem and coming up with as many possible solutions as you can are examples of problem solving techniques. You can decide on the good and bad points of each one, then select the best solution.
5. Seek happiness
A lot of researches show that being happier doesn’t only make you feel better, but also brings a host of potential health benefits. Maintaining a healthy well being may also improve sleep habits and practices, which are essential for better concentration, productivity, performance and physical health..
Other researchers also show that being happy would prevent diseases to occur. A research has shown that being happier may help keep your immune system strong. Consequently, this may help reduce risks of having colds and chest infections. What’s more, being happy protects your heart. Another study shows that happiness reduces blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart disease, which is the biggest cause of death worldwide.
Takeaway
Simple changes such as proper diet, exercise, sleeping habits, stress management and being happy are what other people called as “lifestyle medicine”. This is what experts say as lifelong good health. If you want to live longer, act now.
