Living a healthy lifestyle is important for both your physical and mental well-being. Adopting healthy habits can help prevent illness, increase energy levels, improve mood, and allow you to get the most out of life. This comprehensive guide provides healthy tips for healthy living and advice to help you lead a healthier life.
Eat a Balanced, Nutritious Diet
The foods you eat have a significant impact on your health. Making smart dietary choices is key to feeling your best.
Fill Half Your Plate with Fruits and Vegetables
Aim to fill half your plate with fruits and vegetables at every meal. Produce provides essential vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants. Getting enough can help reduce your risk for heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers. Try these easy ways to eat more:
- Add berries, bananas, or oranges to your morning oatmeal
- Have a vegetable omelette and fruit salad for breakfast
- Snack on carrots, celery, apples or grape tomatoes
- Add leafy greens, peppers, tomatoes, and onions to sandwiches and wraps
- Order vegetable-based sides like salads and steamed broccoli when dining out
Choose Whole Grains
Refined grains like white bread, pasta, and rice have the bran and germ removed, stripping away beneficial nutrients. Instead, opt for nutrient-dense whole grain foods, including:
- Brown or wild rice
- Whole grain bread
- Old fashioned oats
- Popcorn
- Quinoa
- Barley
Aim for at least half your grain intake to be 100% whole grain.
Pick Lean Protein
Protein provides essential amino acids needed to build, repair, and maintain muscle tissue. Great lean protein options include:
- Chicken and turkey breast
- Fish like salmon and tuna
- Shellfish such as shrimp
- Eggs
- Beans and lentils
- Tofu
- Low-fat dairy like Greek yogurt
- Stay Hydrated
Drinking enough fluids, especially water, is vital for overall health. Aim for at least eight 8-ounce glasses of fluids per day to stay properly hydrated. Some signs you may need to drink more:
- Fatigue
- Headaches
- Dizziness
- Dark urine
- Dry skin
Try infusing your water with fruits and herbs to boost flavour naturally without added sugars or calories.
Cook More Meals at Home
Preparing meals at home allows you to control ingredients and portions. Basic healthy cooking techniques include:
- Baking, broiling or grilling instead of frying
- Using healthy oils like olive and avocado oil
- Limiting salt, sugar, and sauces high in fat and calories
- Adding as many vegetables as possible
- Cooking more dishes yourself can ensure you put nutrient-dense whole foods on the table.
Watch Portion Sizes
It’s easy to overeat when portions are too large, even of healthy fare. Use smaller plates, bowls, and serving utensils to help control amounts. Read serving size info on packaging and consider weighing and measuring portions to get used to what standard serving sizes should look like.
When eating out, box up half before you start to eat, or ask for a to-go container to portion out proper amounts. Just avoiding oversized portions can save significant calories.
Lead an Active Lifestyle
Along with a balanced diet, regular physical activity is vital for good health. It helps control weight, strengthens the heart and lungs, improves mood, and lowers the risk for many chronic diseases.
Aim for 2 1/2 Hours per Week of Moderate Exercise
Experts recommend a minimum of 150 minutes per week of moderate aerobic exercise, which equals about 30 minutes five days per week. Activities like brisk walking, swimming, and cycling all apply. You can break the time up into chunks as small as 10 minutes a few times a day if that works better with your schedule.
Aim to work hard enough that you breathe harder and your heart beats faster, but not so vigorously that you cannot maintain a conversation. Over time, build towards more challenging workouts and longer durations for enhanced fitness.
Strengthen Major Muscle Groups Twice Weekly
Do muscle-strengthening moves a minimum of two days per week, allowing rest days in between for muscles to recover. Squats, lunges, planks, bicep curls, and yoga are just a few examples of excellent strength exercises. Use resistance bands, weights, fitness equipment, or just your own body weight.
Building muscular fitness preserves strength and mobility, improves stability and balance, supports functional independence as we age, and can increase metabolism.
Sit Less and Move Around More
Studies show prolonged periods of inactivity can negatively impact health and reduce lifespan, even among those who exercise regularly. Set a goal to stand up and move every 30 to 60 minutes throughout your day. Other lifestyle tips include:
- Take the stairs whenever possible
- Walk while you take phone calls
- Choose further parking spots and walk the extra distance
- Stand up whenever commercials are on if watching TV
- Set hourly alerts to get up and stretch or take a quick walk
- Little bursts of activity add up and can counteract some harms of excessive sedentary time.
Prioritize Rest and Relaxation
Making time for rest and self-care is just as important as diet and exercise. An overstressed, exhausted body faces greater health risks. Recharging properly allows you to function at your best.
Unwind Daily
Avoid burnout by carving time out of each day strictly for relaxation and social connection. Engaging in rejuvenating activities like:
- Reading
- Listening to music or podcasts
- Enjoying a warm bath
- Spending time outdoors
- Practicing meditation, yoga, or deep breathing
- Ridding your mind and body of tension enhances mood, focus, and performance.
Get Enough Sleep
Insufficient sleep increases risk for medical problems like heart disease, diabetes, and stroke. Adults should aim for seven to nine hours per night. Tips for better rest include:
- Going to bed and waking up at consistent times
- Exercising regularly, but avoiding vigorous activity a few hours before bed
- Following a relaxing pre-bed routine like gentle yoga or reading
- Making sure your bedroom is dark, cool, and quiet
- Avoiding caffeine, large meals, and screen time late in the evening
Feeling well-rested makes it easier to eat right, exercise, and manage stress.
Take Regular Vacations
Don’t underestimate the importance of getting away and taking a break from day-to-day demands. Time off provides perspective and emotional recharging that carries over long after the trip.
Plan at least one longer vacation per year to thoroughly decompress, plus additional weekends and staycations as possible. Actively engage in relaxation by minimizing work and responsibilities so you can fully mentally check out.
Vacations, especially when social and active, can benefit physical and mental health in numerous ways.
Foster Healthy Relationships
Humans are social creatures with emotional needs just as essential as physical ones. Nurturing high-quality relationships greatly enhances both wellbeing and longevity.
Invest in Face-to-Face Interactions
While online relationships serve a purpose, they do not replace the neurobiological benefits of in-person socialization. Make an effort to build and maintain strong personal relationships by planning regular face-to-face get-togethers. This may include:
- Weekly coffee dates, dinners, or activity outings with friends
- Regular date nights with your spouse or partner
- Family game nights or weekend activities
- Socializing with colleagues during office breaks
Join Community Groups
Consider joining hobby-based clubs, recreational sports teams, volunteer organizations, religious groups, or other structured ways to regularly engage in meaningful group activities. The social commitment helps ensure you actually participate while also meeting folks with common interests.
Ongoing social circles provide emotional enrichment and a sense of communal belonging. They also expand your network of potential friends and supports.
Open Up to Loved Ones
It can be tempting to bottle up feelings and put on a brave face, but avoiding vulnerability can worsen anxiety, depression, and isolation. Make sure to regularly open up about your thoughts, stresses, fears, and anything else on your mind with trusted loved ones who will listen compassionately.
Feeling understood improves mood and develops intimacy in relationships. Just one quality conversation can lift heavy emotions even more than solitary reflection.
Give and Get Hugs
Hugging and other positive physical contact releases oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin that powerfully combat negative mental health effects of loneliness. Make sure to give appropriate hugs freely to family members, friends, partners, and children.
If you feel like your environment lacks affection or touch, inform those close to you or seek it out by spending more time with grandchildren, volunteer work with kids, adopting pets, requesting platonic massages, etc.
Humans need non-sexual touch. Don’t underestimate its importance for emotional wellbeing.
Adopt Positive Habits and Mind-sets
Cultivating habits, behaviours, and ways of thinking that generate positive emotions and outlooks can profoundly influence quality of life.
Express Gratitude
Pausing each day to reflect on blessings, or saying thanks to others who have done something kind or helpful, trains the brain to tune into positives rather than dwell on negatives. Appreciating life circumstances boosts happiness and fosters compassion.
Keep a gratitude journal, share out loud what you feel thankful for over family dinners, send thank you notes or emails, and offer sincere compliments often.
Embrace Optimism
Looking for the silver lining naturally reduces anxiety levels by focusing attention on what’s going right instead of ruminating over worst case scenarios. When faced with setbacks or failures, thoughtfully analyse how to do better next time around instead of beating yourself up.
Before bed, make it a habit to write down three good things that happened that day and what contributed to the positive outcomes. This exercise slowly shifts perspective.
Find Purpose and Meaning
Feeling driven by purpose gives deep contentment and adds years to life. Seek out worthwhile causes aligned with personal values and actively contribute however possible, even in small ways. Perform little acts of service daily by opening doors, giving up your seat, letting others go first in line, smiling warmly at strangers.
Cultivating selflessness paradoxically boosts mood and life satisfaction.
Persevere in Achieving Goals
Chasing meaningful accomplishments lights up reward centres in the brain. Set short and long-term goals then diligently work towards them through obstacles and frustrations that arise. Recognize all progress made, not just the endpoint achievement.
The satisfaction of achieving goals keeps people positively motivated towards continued growth and challenge. This protects cognitive abilities and emotional outlook over time.
Make Preventative Health a Priority
While genetics and bad luck can sometimes cause illness, many diseases arise from controllable lifestyle factors. Undergoing appropriate health screenings and self-exams allows early detection and treatment when problems first start developing. Don’t ignore warning signs that something may be medically wrong. See your doctor for:
Annual wellness and routine health exams starting at age 18
Regular screenings like mammograms, skin checks, prostate exams, colonoscopies, dental cleanings and check-ups
Monitoring numbers like blood pressure, cholesterol levels, blood sugar, body mass index
Immediate help for symptoms like chest pain, shortness of breath, severe pain, unexplained bleeding or discharge, changes in vision or hearing, etc.
Catching issues early on results in dramatically better prognoses. Prevention through healthy lifestyle choices remains the best medicine.
Final Thoughts on Healthy Living
Making a conscious effort to care for physical and mental wellbeing allows you to function at full capacity and derive the most enjoyment from life. Prioritize the pillars of healthy living by fuelling your body properly, staying active, managing stress, connecting socially, cultivating positive mind-sets, and undergoing preventative medical care.
With consistency over time, small daily improvements transition into substantial, sustainable lifestyle changes that compound. Soon healthy choices become effortless habit. Don’t view shortcomings as failures, but opportunities to try anew. Progress over perfection serves as the mantra.
Stay patient on your wellness journey and remember to celebrate little gains along the way. Each positive choice moves you towards an energized, rewarding life currently and for many years ahead. The steps outlined here pave the path towards wholesome living. Start putting them into practice today!
