Living a healthy lifestyle involves taking care of your physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Here are some tips on how to live a healthy life:
Exercise regularly: Aim for at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise most days of the week. This can be anything from walking to running, swimming, or cycling.
Eat a balanced diet: Choose a diet that's rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats. Avoid processed foods, sugary drinks, and excessive amounts of saturated and trans fats.
Eating a healthy, balanced diet is an important part of maintaining good health, and can help you feel your best.
This means eating a wide variety of foods in the right proportions, and consuming the right amount of food and drink to achieve and maintain a healthy body weight.
People with special dietary needs or a medical condition should ask their doctor or a registered dietitian for advice.
Stay hydrated: Drink plenty of water throughout the day to stay hydrated. Avoid sugary drinks and excessive amounts of alcohol and caffeine.
Get enough sleep: Aim for 7-8 hours of sleep each night. Create a bedtime routine that helps you wind down and relax before going to bed.
Manage stress: Find healthy ways to manage stress, such as meditation, yoga, or deep breathing exercises.
Stress can cause you to have trouble falling asleep. When you have too much to do — and too much to think about — your sleep can suffer. But sleep is the time when your brain and body recharge.
And the quality and amount of sleep you get can affect your mood, energy level, concentration and overall functioning. If you have sleep troubles, make sure that you have a quiet, relaxing bedtime routine, listen to soothing music, put clocks away, and stick to a consistent schedule.
Virtually any form of physical activity can act as a stress reliever. Even if you're not an athlete or you're out of shape, exercise can still be a good stress reliever.
Physical activity can pump up your feel-good endorphins and other natural neural chemicals that enhance your sense of well-being. Exercise can also refocus your mind on your body's movements, which can improve your mood and help the day's irritations fade away. Consider walking, jogging, gardening, housecleaning, biking, swimming, weightlifting or anything else that gets you active.
Stay connected: Maintain healthy relationships with friends and family. Stay connected with loved ones through phone calls, video chats, or in-person visits.
When you're stressed and irritable, your instinct may be to isolate yourself. Instead, reach out to family and friends and make social connections.
Social contact is a good stress reliever because it can offer distraction, provide support and help you tolerate life's up and downs. So take a coffee break with a friend, email a relative or visit your place of worship.
Got more time? Consider volunteering for a charitable group and help yourself while helping others.
Avoid harmful habits: Avoid smoking and excessive drinking. Limit your exposure to environmental toxins and pollutants.
If you know something’s bad for you, why can’t you just stop? About 70% of smokers say they would like to quit. Drug and alcohol abusers struggle to give up addictions that hurt their bodies and tear apart families and friendships. And many of us have unhealthy excess weight that we could lose if only we would eat right and exercise more. So why don’t we do it?
NIH-funded scientists have been searching for answers. They’ve studied what happens in our brains as habits form. They’ve found clues to why bad habits, once established, are so difficult to kick. And they’re developing strategies to help us make the changes we’d like to make.
“Habits play an important role in our health,” says Dr. Nora Volkow, director of NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse. “Understanding the biology of how we develop routines that may be harmful to us, and how to break those routines and embrace new ones, could help us change our lifestyles and adopt healthier behaviors.
”Habits can also develop when good or enjoyable events trigger the brain’s “reward” centers. This can set up potentially harmful routines, such as overeating, smoking, drug or alcohol abuse, gambling and even compulsive use of computers and social media.
Remember, living a healthy lifestyle is a journey, not a destination. Start with small changes and build from there. Focus on progress, not perfection, and be kind to yourself along the way.