10 simple ways to adopt a healthy lifestyle
Life is beautiful if it has a purpose or meaning in it. It is a stream of experiences that eventually result in either happiness or brings our morale down. We all want to live happily but remember happiness is a by-product of life well-lived. Lifestyle is simply the way a person lives. It is a behavioural orientation of an individual and reflects his interests, attitudes, and opinions.
A person with a healthy lifestyle is confident, energetic, and excels more. Living healthily also boosts up one’s self-esteem and ensures emotional and mental stability.
Engage yourself and invest your efforts in making your life healthier and more productive. Prioritise your life and health over bad choices or unhealthy patterns of life. For an expert opinion, you can always consult your GP or a healthcare expert at Click Pharmacy to learn more about a healthy lifestyle.
The life patterns beneficial for a healthy lifestyle are:
1. Eat healthy food
Start your day with a healthy breakfast. After fasting for the whole night, your body needs fuel to get a fresh start. Take 2 meals daily rich in nutrients required for a healthy body. Try to take a balanced diet containing proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and fats in correct proportions. Make a habit of eating vegetables and fresh fruits. Take more proteins and fibres and fewer fats and sugars. Include nuts in your diet and avoid junk foods. Though it is tempting, stay committed to your health. Irregular eating habits eventually result in health issues. Try to take lighter meals at proper times. Late-night eating habit is hazardous to health. Your metabolism works effectively if you observe 10-12 hours of nighttime fasting.
2. Stay hydrated
The body mechanisms like breathing, sweating, and urination constantly lose water. To prevent dehydration, drink loads of water, at least 2 litres daily. The required water intake depends on the factors such as weather, type of food (salty, spicy, and sugary), and activity level. If you are engaged in an intense activity or exercise a lot, you need to drink plenty of water to compensate for the water loss. Water intake is especially high during fever or in diabetes. It is essential to stay hydrated because water helps in:
- Flushing out toxins from the body
- Helps in digestion
- Prevents constipation
- Regulates body temperature
- Stabilises blood pressure
3. Take Multivitamins
It isn’t easy to get the correct amount of all the required nutrients just from the food we eat. Even a healthy food is rich in some of the nutrients and lacks some others. To fill the gaps in our diet, we need to start taking multivitamins daily. Multivitamins also help get strong immunity. Vitamin A, B12, C, D, and minerals like iron, zinc, and magnesium are required by our body to function correctly. Multivitamins also boost energy levels and decrease stress and anxiety.
4. Exercise daily
Stay physically active and make it a habit of doing exercise at least 20 minutes daily. Exercise keeps a person fit both physically and mentally. Take time out of your schedule, design your fitness regime, and follow and maintain it. Join a gym or whatever suits you, like walking, jogging, or yoga. You can even start from a simple 20 minutes’ walk and gradually build up your stamina. Benefits of staying physically active are:
- Helps in weight loss
- Boosts energy levels
- Makes bones strong
- Reduce stress and depression
- Good for brain health and memory
5. Take adequate amount of sleep
Sleep is as vital for a healthy lifestyle as healthy food. Sound sleep helps to maintain physical health and emotional wellbeing. Focus on sleep hygiene and adopt ways that contribute to good sleep. Inadequate sleep or poor sleep quality makes it difficult to work, study or socialise. Typically 7-8 hours of sleep is recommended for an adult. If you are unable to sleep for a sufficient amount of time, it will significantly impact your work performance. Sleeplessness or poor sleep quality makes it difficult to cope with everyday life activities due to irritability, fatigue, low motivation, and poor concentration. The amount and quality of sleep are strongly connected to our immune system. The more sufficient and good our sleep is, the better it improves our:
- Productivity
- Cognition
- Concentration
6. Limit alcohol intake
Excess of everything is bad so avoid alcohol abuse. Try to keep it moderate, as drinking alcohol moderately is not a point of concern. Drinking alcohol in excess leads to impairment of thinking and behaviour. Alcohol abuse may lead to serious health risks like liver failure or digestive problems. The liver is damaged mainly due to excessive consumption of alcohol.
7. Reduce Smoking
Smoking is injurious to health. Smoking occasionally or social smoking is not alarming. Try not to be a chain smoker. Smokers are at a high risk of getting heart disease, stroke, cancer, especially lung cancer, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Try to quit smoking or fix oral cravings with chewing gum, drink a glass of water, brush teeth, and take nicotine-coated lozenges.
8. Maintain a healthy body weight
Maintaining a healthy body weight is essential for the body to function properly. Body mass index or BMI is a measure of body fat depending on weight and height. Do keep a regular check on your weight and maintain your BMI. It is not a healthy sign to be overweight; instead, gaining weight is a big discomfort.
9. Reduce sitting and screen time
Sitting for long periods can develop serious health issues. If you are at a job and have to sit for more extended periods, take short intervals by standing up, walking around, or simply stretching your body. Sitting less helps maintain body weight and improves general health. Minimise your sitting time by limiting your screen time. Life nowadays is revolving around screens. Your day starts with a mobile phone, moves to desktops or laptops at the workplace, and ends at watching a movie. A healthy lifestyle needs to minimise both sitting and screen time.
10. Regular medical checkup
Regularly visit your GP for a thorough medical checkup. Try not to neglect any sign or symptom that is new to you or is related to your health—often, minor negligence results in serious problems. Remember, a healthy body lives a healthy life.