When it comes to your health, you are in the driver’s seat. With the right habits, you can be well on your way to healthy living.
Here at iw lifei, we want to help bring you closer to holistic health and wellness. One great way to do that is to highlight some helpful tips that can help you support your overall health.
What Are Some Helpful Wellness Tips?
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is not as simple as many of us would hope. Often the easiest choice for food or way to save time during the day is not the healthiest. Supporting your overall health and well-being relies on consistent care for your body and positive habit formation.Â
Establishing healthy, consistent habits and keeping up with them is a constant journey, but by following some key tips, you can feel more confident in your health and wellness.
1. Get Regular Physical Activity
Our bodies are meant to move — support your overall wellness by making exercise an important part of your daily routine. Exercise has a wide range of benefits for your health, both immediate and long-term. Exercise has positive effects on brain health, blood pressure, heart rate, and stress levels. Regular exercise, like strength training and cardio, can also help you maintain a healthy weight, achieve weight loss, and reduce your risk of heart disease over time.
The best part is that you can choose the form of exercise that you prefer most, whether running, weightlifting, or playing sports. All exercise is beneficial, although they may offer slightly different benefits.
Experts recommend exercising for at least 30 minutes a day. The amount of time you spend exercising will depend largely on your health and fitness goals, like whether you want to maintain your weight, lose weight, or build muscle.
2. Eat a Balanced Diet
Food is fuel, helping your body to function appropriately, and the fuel you give your body matters.Â
Consistently eating foods high in unhealthy fats and sugar can leave you feeling sluggish and may even lead to negative long-term health effects. On the other hand, eating healthy foods like lean proteins, complex carbohydrates, and fruits and veggies high in vitamins and antioxidants can provide your body with more effective fuel.
Maintaining a varied diet with vitamin-rich foods allows you to reduce your risk for chronic disease, enjoy a better mood, and support healthy skin and a healthy heart. Avoiding processed foods, staying away from saturated and trans fats, and minimizing high-sodium foods all help to promote health.
Keep in mind that you do not have to be perfect all the time, and it is okay to have the occasional treat, but your day-to-day habits will be key to your health, so try to lean toward more positive choices as often as you can.
4. Have a Strong Sleep Routine
Although it is one of the first things that busy people sacrifice, sleep is a vital part of a healthy lifestyle, supporting both your physical health and mental well-being. Sleep has many health benefits, including helping you maintain a healthy weight, supporting your immune system, promoting a more positive mood, and improving your focus, along with many others.
According to general guidelines, most adults need between seven and nine hours of sleep each night. When it comes to sleep, quality matters just as much as quantity. You can improve the quality of your sleep by having a consistent routine, having a comfortable, dark sleep environment, and avoiding sleep inhibitors like caffeine or phone screens within a couple of hours before bed.
If you have consistent trouble falling asleep or struggle with a sleeping disorder, you should consult your doctor about ways to improve your sleep.
5. Get Regular Checkups
Your body is like a machine that runs constantly so you can function.Â
Consistent checkups are vital for diagnosing and addressing any problems with a machine. During a routine checkup, your doctor will do a general screening and usually take bloodwork to ensure your body is functioning as it should. If your doctor notices any problems, they will bring them to your attention and give you a treatment plan to address them.
You should get a checkup at least once a year to ensure that you are in good health and to help pinpoint and address any minor issues before they become serious.
6. Stay Hydrated
Water is necessary for our survival. After all, 70% of the human body is made of water.Â
Water helps carry nutrients between cells, supports digestion, helps organ function, and flushes out bacteria from the body. Staying hydrated is vital to our health and can even help you feel more alert and energized throughout the day.
There is no direct answer for how much water you should drink as everyone is different, but a good general rule is to strive for about eight full glasses of water daily. If you live somewhere hot, if it is the middle of summer, or if you exercise frequently, you may need to drink more water to account for water loss through sweat and general bodily functions. Try to sip some water throughout the day — feeling thirsty is a sign that you are already dehydrated.
In addition to drinking more water, you should try to avoid sugary drinks like fruit juices as often as possible, as they may leave you feeling thirstier and can lead to negative health effects. You can still get hydration from anything that contains water, but there is no real substitute that is quite as effective as water itself.Â
Although it is possible, it is rare to drink too much water, so if you think you need it, drink up.
7. Minimize Stress
Stress is probably one of the most negative contributors to your health as it has many negative effects on the body. Stress is the feeling of emotional tension and is a natural response that helps tell us when something needs to be fixed.Â
However, operating under constant stress can have a wide range of symptoms that affect your mental and physical health, including anything as minor as a poor mood to effects as serious as an increased risk for disease.
Between work and other aspects of life, it is not always possible to minimize stress as much as we would like. As a result, it is important to find ways to cope with stress. Different coping strategies may work better for different people. Some good examples include meditation, exercise, and listening to music. It is always important to make time for things you enjoy, especially when life seems too stressful.
8. Consider Taking a Multivitamin
You should strive to get as many of your necessary nutrients as possible from food. However, it can be hard to track all of the vitamins that you are getting from the foods you eat.
If you are not confident that you are getting all of your necessary vitamins from food, then a multivitamin is a great way to provide your body with extra nutrition to fill in any nutrient gaps. Multivitamins can be a great way to support your health and key systems in your body.
You can take a multivitamin daily with food to provide extra nutrients. Look for a multivitamin rich with important nutrients that will help you fill in important nutritional gaps each day.
9. Supplement Key NutrientsÂ
Even on a balanced diet, there may be some nutrients that you just miss out on. For example, people on a plant-based diet may have a harder time obtaining nutrients like vitamin B12 and omega-3 fatty acids since these are most prevalent in animal-based products. Even for omnivores, it can be hard to get some important nutrients if you do not eat the foods that provide them often enough.
Omega-3s DHA and EPA are important nutrients for the body, but they are only available through seafood sources and algae. As a result, it is a good idea to include an omega-3 supplement in your daily routine, like iwi life’s completely plant-based algae omega-3 supplement. You may benefit from a wide variety of supplements depending on your diet, so talk to your doctor if you feel you are missing out on key nutrients.
10. Maintain a Work-Life Balance
Maintaining a healthy work-life balance is another crucial factor for your overall wellness. If you let your work control your life, your stress levels can easily get away from you. When you spend every waking hour completing tasks for work or even just thinking about work, it might indicate that your work-life balance needs some attention.
It is important to set proper boundaries and ensure that you have time to do things you enjoy, spend quality time with your loved ones, and engage in activities outside of your career.
Live Healthily
By following some of the above tips and developing healthy habits, you can enjoy some great benefits for your physical and mental health. All of these tips work hand-in-hand toward supporting a healthy lifestyle. In order to maintain a strong bill of health, you should strive to incorporate all of the above.
At iwi life, we help provide an easy way to start managing your health. With our plant-based omega-3 supplements, you can support several important systems in your body, including your brain, heart, joints, and more. Try our omega-3 supplement for yourself to include these important healthy fats in your diet and see the benefits it can have for your health.
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Sources:
Working out boosts brain health | American Psychological Association
