No matter how motivated you are, starting a new health and wellness plan can feel like an uphill struggle. Whether this is your first attempt at enhancing your health or you’ve tried an array of different techniques, you’ll want to ensure that you’re taking the right steps to hit your goals.
You might be surprised to learn that you don’t need to engage in drastic changes or overhaul your entire lifestyle in order to improve your health. In fact, making small but long-term modifications can be far more effective.
If you’re eager to feel better, boost your energy, or get fitter, take a look at these simple ways you can optimize your health and wellness right now:
Walk a Little More
Walking is often overlooked as a form of exercise, but it can be a fantastic way to improve your fitness levels. What’s more – it can contribute to weight loss and enhance your cardiovascular function. The average adult should aim to hit around 10,000 steps a day but if this feels like too much, set yourself a smaller goal to get started.
When you can’t find the motivation to hit the gym or go for a run, heading out for a brisk walk can seem like an easy alternative. However, it will still enable you to boost your fitness, lose weight and increase your energy.
Let a Fever Run It’s Course
Fever isn’t a pointless symptom. Instead, it is a generic immune response designed to help the body recover faster.
Don’t assume that showing a temperature of 102 F on a thermal scanner is a bad thing. When your internal body temperature is higher, viruses and bacteria find it more difficult to thrive and multiple. A fever can, therefore, slow down the rate at which the disease spreads, giving your body more time to come up with a permanent solution to the problem.
Eat Homecooked Food
Going to a fancy restaurant or treating yourself to takeout once in a while isn’t a bad thing but, on a daily basis, it’s best to eat homecooked meals when you can. Pre-packaged meals typically contain more saturated fats, salt, and chemicals, so it doesn’t take long for them to have an impact on your health.
When you prepare meals at home, you can choose to use natural foods and high-quality ingredients, so you’ll know exactly what’s in each bite. If preparing a meal from scratch every day feels like a hassle, meal prepping once a week will ensure you’ve always got access to a nutritious homecooked meal.
Change Your Sheets
We love to think of our beds as the ultimate place for rest and relaxation but, in reality, mattresses and bedding are teaming with bed bugs, bacteria, and skin debris. Furthermore, your pillowcase may have remnants of makeup or sweat on it, which could increase the risk of illness and cause skin problems, such as acne. To combat this, change your bedsheets as often as possible and clean your mattress regularly.
Spend More Time Outdoors
If you work in an indoor environment, you probably spend most of your time under artificial light. This can have a major impact on your physical and emotional well-being
but spending more time outdoors can turn things around. Spending time in the sunshine boosts your vitamin D absorption, for example, which can eliminate joint pain and fatigue, as well as boosting your mood.
Although you’ll need to protect your skin from the sun, you can still increase the amount of vitamin D you’re getting, even when you’re wearing sunscreen. Whether you go hiking in the mountains or take a brisk walk during your lunch break, increasing the amount of time you spend outdoors can have a positive effect on every aspect of your life.
Improve Your Cardiovascular Health
If you want to boost your health and wellness it’s a good idea to think about your cardiovascular health. It’s especially important to look after your heart health as you age. There are plenty of ways that you can improve your cardiovascular health including:
- Regular cardio exercise and maintaining a healthy weight.
- Reducing stress with practices like meditation and yoga.
- Avoid vices like too much alcohol or smoking.
- Visit your doctor for blood pressure checks.
Unless you look after your heart health you could end up with cardiovascular issues later on. Thankfully there are lots of treatments to support those with heart conditions, for instance coronary artery bypass grafting. If you’re wondering what is cabg? You can find more info on the CTVSA website.
Be More Sociable
When you’ve got a million things on your ‘To Do’ list and a host of commitments, it can be hard to find the time to catch up with friends and family. However, loneliness and isolation can be a trigger for declining mental health. Furthermore, feeling lonely is also believed to contribute to some physical health conditions too.
Whether you’re able to catch up in person or connect via a virtual call, make the effort to communicate with the people you love. As well as boosting your own mood and well-being, you’ll enhance theirs too.
Measure Your Success
As you begin embarking on a new journey towards a healthier lifestyle, it can be helpful to monitor your progress and measure your success. If you want to lose weight or increase your fitness, jumping on the scale or using a fitness tracker will help you to see how well you’re doing. While it can be harder to monitor other lifestyle changes, keeping a daily bullet journal can allow you to look back and see how your mood has been affected by the positive changes you’re making.
If getting healthy has always seemed like an overwhelming task, you no longer need to worry. These small changes can have a transformative effect on your well-being and give you the motivation you need to transform your health and wellness.
Carola Jain
Wednesday 10th of August 2022
These are some good health-related tips to keep in mind, whether you're training for a marathon or just looking to improve your health in general.