An active, healthy lifestyle involves eating nutritious food from all categories, participating in physical activity or exercise regularly and prioritizing mental wellbeing. Furthermore, it’s essential that unhealthy habits like overusing medications, drinking too much alcohol or smoking are avoided.
Other healthy lifestyle practices may include practicing mindfulness, spending quality time with family and pursuing hobbies while managing stress effectively. While such practices may appear self-evident, their scientific basis has been demonstrated.
Nutrition
Recent evidence demonstrates the significant effects our diet and physical activity choices can have on our overall health. A healthy lifestyle includes adopting eating patterns low in sodium, trans fat and added sugar while being high in fiber-rich whole grains, fruits vegetables nuts and fish.
Dietary patterns that reduce risk have been shown to help lower risks for several noncommunicable diseases, and NIEHS supports research focusing on nutrition intakes and diet patterns as a means of disease prevention.
Healthy eating involves including fruits and vegetables at every meal; drinking plenty of water, coffee or tea, and limiting alcoholic drinks; getting regular physical activity and quality sleep; not smoking; and minimizing environmental pollutants are also part of leading a healthy lifestyle. Achieve these goals through consultation with your physician.
Exercise
Regular physical activity and exercise are proven to benefit health, prevent disease, reduce/control/manage stress levels and enhance mood. Therefore, it’s vital that those not currently engaging in regular physical activity make changes to their lifestyle to increase regular physical activity levels and enhance mood.
People should find activities they enjoy and are comfortable engaging in for exercise, which could include anything from walking and swimming to biking and participating in fitness classes. Adults should aim to accumulate at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity physical activity per week as per government guidelines; moderate intensity physical activity includes activities like walking, swimming and cycling while vigorous intensity physical activity includes jogging or fitness class participation as examples of moderate intensity physical activity.
Muscle strengthening exercises should also form part of any fitness regime. By improving muscle strength, muscle-strengthening exercises make everyday tasks simpler and prevent falls from happening. Gradually increase weight and repetitions per exercise over time for best results.
Sleep
Sleep plays an integral part in maintaining overall physical health, contributing to alertness and an enhanced ability to learn and think. Furthermore, it may even improve mood.
Humans evolved with a 24-hour cycle of day and night, so that waking during the day and sleeping at night allowed them to conserve energy while meeting their rest needs. Sleep-wake patterns are supported by biological mechanisms including circadian rhythms, sleep drives and replenishing lost energy from during the day.
Sleep helps the brain process information, consolidate memories, and eliminate amyloid and tau proteins associated with Alzheimer’s disease from plaque formation. Sleep also releases growth hormone that promotes development in children and adolescents as well as repairs cellular damage while strengthening immunity against infections.
Most adults need at least seven to nine hours of sleep each night in order to remain healthy. To get the best restful slumber possible, stick to a consistent schedule and eliminate distractions; caffeine may interfere with natural sleep cycles. If you are having trouble sleeping, speak to your healthcare provider; they may suggest keeping a sleep diary or providing other strategies for improving quality rest.
Stress Management
Stress is part of life, but chronic anxiety can be harmful. To effectively manage it, it’s essential to identify when and why you are experiencing stress before finding ways to alleviate it.
Stress is an entirely normal response to change or challenges; however, our bodies can only tolerate so much. When feeling overwhelmed by change or threats, the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis releases hormones to help your body manage this pressure or threat; once this situation passes however, these hormones should return back down; if ongoing stress causes chemicals in your body to remain elevated resulting in negative health symptoms.
As it turns out, there are various effective and simple strategies available to you for alleviating stress. A discussion with your healthcare provider is often an excellent starting point to gain knowledge on stress management techniques that may fit into daily life – perhaps using Five R’s as part of the strategy for improved resilience and coping abilities.
