There has been more and more research done showing that the key to long life and good health is what they call “lifestyle medicine.” You know how they say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure? Consider the steps below to be your ounce of prevention that you can start taking today.
1. Think Positive and Be Grateful
Research shows that having a healthy positive attitude helps build a healthier immune system and this boosts overall health. Your body believes what you think, so you should focus on the positive side of life.
2. Love Your Vegetables
Try having five servings of vegetables a day, may it be raw, steamed, or stir-fried. A diet high in vegetables is really helpful for preventing cancers of the lung, colon, breast, cervix, esophagus, stomach, bladder, pancreas, and ovaries. Many powerful phytonutrients can be found in vegetables with the boldest colors, such as broccoli, cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, grapes, and leafy greens.
3. Be 5-Meals-A-Day Eater
What you eat and how much you eat can determine both your metabolism and your energy levels. A “5 meal ideal” can help you keep your energy levels maintained, helping you manage your weight, avoid your cravings, and maintain your focus.
4. Exercise Everyday
Daily exercise can reduce all of the biomarkers of aging, including improving eyesight, normalizing blood pressure, improving lean muscle, lowering cholesterol, and improving bone density. If you want to live well and live longer, you must give yourself time to exercise. Studies show that even ten minutes of exercise makes a difference, so you should be getting up now and moving.
5. Always Get A Better Night Sleep
If you have a problem sleeping, try out relaxation techniques or eat a small bedtime snack to help shift the body and mind into sleep mode: whole grain cereal with milk, oatmeal, cherries, or chamomile tea. Darken your room and turn your clock away from you. Write down worries or stressful thoughts to get them out of your head and onto a page, and it will help you put them into perspective so you can quit worrying about them.
6. Feel The Satisfaction
Both eating and physical activity are fun, but you should be mindful toward satisfaction, not pain. Do the things that are helpful for your satisfaction, that help you maintain a balanced life. If you keep an eye toward satisfaction, you can remove many of the unnecessary problems in your life.
7. Take Breaks
Give yourself permission to shorten your workout if you feel like it is not working, because overtraining could be a problem. Creating a program that breaks your routine into various training modes, that can help prevent overtraining by building rest phases into your workout. You can also help balance your workout program by incorporating a variety of workouts.
8. Think Small
You should try to focus first on small, seemingly inconsequential, and unhealthy habits first. Turn these into healthy and positive habits if possible. If you have a habit of eating as soon as you get home at night, instead, keep walking shoes nearby and take a walk around the block. If you have a can of soda at a specific time every day, have a glass of water instead. Starting with small, painless changes, you can help establish the mentality required to make healthy changes.
9. Keep Good Company
You can do all the good and healthy things, but if you have personal relationships with people who have unhealthy habits, you may still fail. The healthiest people are those who have healthy relationships with other healthy people. Have your family and friends with you when you exercise or eat healthier. Making healthy changes with people you love can bring you closer together as well as motivate you.
10. Write A List And Check It Twice
Take a few minutes and write down all the reasons you can’t begin something or the things you are troubled with, and then look at the basis of each reason. For instance, if you wrote, “No time,” then perhaps that’s based on a belief that an exercise program takes a huge amount of time. Starting with even five minutes a day will have a positive effect because you created a healthy habit where one didn’t exist before, and that is great progress toward living a healthier life now.
