Tips to Promote a Healthy and Active Lifestyle

Easy ways to set into a healthy lifestyle:

1. Drink more water

Most people don't drink enough water during the day. Water is a need for our bodies to function as over 60% of our body is made up of water. Water carries out our bodily functions such as removing waste and carrying nutrients and oxygen around our body. Because we lose water everyday through urine, bowel movement, perspiration (sweating) and breathing, we need to refill our bodies with water.

2. Get enough sleep

Getting a good amount of sleep is important as your body needs a break. Sleep is involved in the healing and repair of your heart and blood vessels. It reduces stress and helps clear your mind and get along better with others. When you don't rest well, you eat more to gain energy. Getting enough rest ensures that you don't snack throughout the day to stay awake. The lack of sleep also cause premature aging.

3. Exercise

Exercising not just few times a week, but everyday can help lead a healthy lifestyle. Movement is needed in life. Research shows that exercising daily brings tremendous benefits to your health, such as increased life span, lowering the risk of diseases, higher bone density, and weight loss. You can check out other posts on the blog for fitness plans to help you stay fit.

4. Eat more fruit

Fruits are a plethora of vitamins and minerals. Taking synthetic supplements are not the same as consuming the food direct from nature; for example oranges offer more health benefits than Vitamin C pills.  Some of the most nutritious fruit are watermelon, apricots, avocado, apple, cantaloupe, grapefruit, kiwi, guava, papaya, and strawberries. 

5. Eat more vegetables

Just like fruits, vegetables are important for the wellbeing of our bodies. Veggies improve blood pressure, help your eyes, improve your skin, reduce risks of cancer and heart diseases, and benefits your blood sugar. It is suggested to have 5-9 servings of fruits and vegetables, yet most people don't have even 5 servings.

6. Pick bright colored foods

Fruits and vegetables with bright colors are usually high in anti-oxidants. Anti-oxidants are good for your health because they remove free radicals in our body that damage our cells. Colorful foods also contain many vitamins with few calories. Next to maintaining good health, nutrients in vegetables and fruits protect against cancer, heart diseases, vision loss, hypertension, and other diseases.

7. Positive mindset

Having a positive mental health is an important part of a healthy lifestyle. Your mindset can affect your health by becoming depressed, anxious, and stressed, affecting how well you treat, manage, or cope with your illness. Having a positive mindset can give you more confidence, improve your mood, and also reduce the likelihood of developing conditions such as hypertension, depression, and stress-related disorders. You can get a greater resistance to colds and have better psychological and physical well-being.

8. Posture

Good posture improves your breathing and improves spine health. Sitting and standing with proper alignment improves blood flow, helps keeps your nerves and blood vessels healthy, and supports your muscles, ligaments, and tendons. People who have good posture are less likely to experience back and neck pain.

9. Less oily food

Reducing your intake of fast food, fries, doughnuts, chips, wedges, and foods that have been deep fried as they are high in calories and unhealthy fats. A high intake of oily food can lead to  weight gain, obesity, heart disease, diabetes, bloating, diarrhea, acne, and impaired brain function. Not only are they very fattening, they are also dangerous. Deep fried food contains acrylamide, a potential cancer-causing chemical.

10. Stop smoking

It is common knowledge and has been proven many times that smoking detrimental to health, severely increasing the risk of lung cancer, kidney cancer, esophageal cancer (of our gullet), heart attacks and more. Smoking can also harm those around you. Breathing in secondhand smoke increases the risk of lung cancer, heart disease, and stroke. In children, it doubles the risk of getting chest illnesses such as pneumonia, ear infections, wheezing and asthma.