A healthy lifestyle is a complex concept that includes many components. This includes all areas of human existence - from nutrition to emotional mood. A healthy lifestyle is a way of life aimed at completely changing previous habits regarding food, physical activity and rest.
Human health and its dependence on lifestyle
A healthy lifestyle is a complex concept that includes many components. This includes all areas of human existence - from nutrition to emotional mood. A healthy lifestyle is a way of life aimed at completely changing previous habits regarding food, physical activity and rest.
A healthy lifestyle is a prerequisite and a necessary condition for:
· Full development of various aspects of human life;
· Achievement of active longevity by a person;
· Active participation of a person of any age in social, labor, family activities.
Interest in this topic arose relatively recently (in the 70s of the 20th century) and was associated with changes in the lifestyle of modern people, increasing life expectancy, global changes in the human environment, and the increasing influence of environmental factors on human health.
Modern people began to lead a less active lifestyle, eat more food and have more free time. At the same time, the speed of life has increased significantly, which has increased the number of stress factors. Doctors note that the number of hereditary diseases is increasing every year. In this regard, the question of how to stay healthy (spiritually and physically) and at the same time live long and actively becomes very relevant.
Benefits of Healthy Habits
Every person knows from childhood that healthy habits like eating healthy food and doing exercise are good. But have you ever thought about why exactly you should practice these habits? Healthy habits are any behavior that benefits your physical, mental and emotional health. That is, they improve your overall well-being.
Healthy habits are difficult to develop and often require a change in mindset. But if you are willing to make sacrifices to improve your health, the results will last for years, regardless of your gender, age or physical abilities. Here are five benefits of a healthy lifestyle:
- Weight control. Proper nutrition and regular exercise will help you avoid excess weight gain.
- Improved mood . Physical activity stimulates the production of endorphins. Endorphins are brain chemicals that make a person feel happier and calmer. In addition, a healthy lifestyle helps improve your physique. Consequently, you will begin to feel better about your appearance, which can boost your self-confidence. There are also short-term benefits of exercise, such as improved cognitive function and reduced stress.
- Disease prevention . Regular exercise helps strengthen the cardiovascular system and immunity. This way you will be able to prevent many diseases. But remember the importance of prior consultation with your doctor.
- Increased energy . We all experience that feeling of sluggishness after eating too much junk food. On the contrary, when we eat a balanced diet, our body receives the fuel it needs to complete daily tasks. And regular physical activity contributes to the timely delivery of oxygen and nutrients to tissues, improves muscle strength and increases endurance, giving a person more energy.
- Life extension. When you practice healthy habits, you increase your chances of living a longer life. A study was conducted in the USA over 8 years, in which 13,000 people took part. A study found that people who walked just 30 minutes a day were significantly less likely to die prematurely compared to those who walked infrequently [The American Council on Exercise, 2009]. What about more serious physical activity?
The benefits of a healthy lifestyle are obvious, but starting to follow it is not easy. You won't change your thinking and behavior overnight, so be patient and incorporate healthy habits into your life gradually.
How to maintain health and longevity.
Currently, medical science guarantees that each of us can live at least 80 years and almost never get sick. Doctors have learned to prevent myocardial infarction and cerebral stroke, maintain health in patients with diabetes and other chronic diseases, cure malignant tumors detected in the early stages, and prevent the development of infectious diseases.
However, to do this, we ourselves must actively participate in maintaining and strengthening our health. Normal blood pressure, low blood fat, stopping smoking, limiting alcohol, regular preventive examinations for early detection of precancerous diseases, timely vaccinations against infectious diseases - this is the main “secret” of maintaining health today. We believe that all of us, citizens of Russia, need to be attentive to our health.
Human health is a priceless gift of nature, which is given to him as a gift at birth. But man is made in an amazing way: he does not value what is given to him for free. Carelessly squandering the health he inherited, he comes to his senses only when he has nothing to pay for the pleasure of living on. Maintaining health is the most important task for us.
Nowadays, where there are a lot of exhaust fumes, industrial waste, low-quality medications, nervous tension, stress due to the fast pace of life, and other negative factors, it is very difficult to maintain excellent health for many years.
To maintain health, a whole range of measures is required that will support the body and help prevent premature aging of cells and internal organs. And first of all, maintaining health depends on lifestyle and type of activity.
To do this, you need to completely give up bad habits - smoking, drinking alcohol, drugs and other bad habits. Smoking negatively affects the lungs and the condition of the cardiovascular system.
Alcohol affects most of a person’s internal organs, which has also been discussed quite a lot. We are not even talking about drugs at all, since it is impossible to imagine that a person who takes narcotic substances even thinks about maintaining his health.
Secondly, maintaining health depends on physical activity. Most modern people lead a sedentary lifestyle and do not exercise at all, while often complaining of various health problems. Excessive exercise can lead to serious illnesses. Therefore, it is better to choose a lifestyle that will help you always be in excellent physical shape and increase the body’s resistance to diseases and environmental influences.
The nature of your diet also affects your health. Our body requires every day the necessary amount of nutrients, macro and microelements, minerals, vitamins, fats, carbohydrates and proteins in order to cope with daily stress and the normal functioning of all our organs. At the same time, any body requires proper and good nutrition, regardless of where a person works and what kind of lifestyle he leads, since energy is spent both during physical activity and mental work.
Environmental factors also influence health maintenance. Therefore, in order to reduce their negative impact, it is necessary to travel outside the city as often as possible, breathe clean, fresh country air, eat only natural products if possible, and purchase housing away from industries that pollute the environment.
Maintaining health is an urgent task for any person. To carry it out, you need to pay maximum attention, never ignoring the body’s alarm signals and doing everything possible to help the body cope with daily stress and negative factors. It’s scary to think that in our time, in exchange for health, a person acquires bad habits: smoking, drinking, overeating, lying on the couch for hours in front of the TV, etc. But there is a way out of this vicious circle, and it is known and universal to everyone: “Life is movement. What doesn’t move, doesn’t work, doesn’t strain, dies.” And if you want to live a full and interesting life for many years, you need to: Firstly, move more, secondly, think about what we eat and what we drink, and thirdly, have a positive attitude towards the world around us. We can list for a long time ways to live a healthy life in order to maintain health, but nothing will change unless we ourselves want to be like that. According to Eastern healers, illness originates in the depths of our mind, and only then is realized on the material level.
Therefore, keep your thoughts pure and positive for a long, healthy life. Currently, to our great regret, a person must fight for his health. Because we have broken connections with the outside world. Environmental problems are very acute on earth. Our food is not capable of filling the human body with all nutrients; in addition, it contains many components that are harmful to health, which leads to a weakened immune system and the birth of sick people. So, let's take the first steps towards health.
You can improve and enhance your health by creating a specific schedule for working on yourself. We are ready to provide you with such assistance in our Health Centers, which, by the way, you should visit in order to check your health status and receive the necessary recommendations from specialists on health promotion. Not everyone can immediately take a drastic approach to improving their health.
In this case, you can start implementing the program gradually, for example, start with morning exercises, and then supplement it with jogging. Then we can work on the fight against excess weight. The goal should be achieved not by extraordinary measures (complete fasting or exhausting sitting in the steam room), but again by gradual reductions in the diet of carbohydrates, fats, and the exclusion of alcohol. Do not allow young people to drink alcohol, do not decorate the table with bottles, refuse to drink.
Our health is in our own hands. We must understand that only healthy people can survive in the modern world, so we must take care of the most valuable thing we have. Fight for your health and preserve it in all available ways.
Secrets of longevity.
• A balanced, healthy diet is the key to success. Eat in such a way as to relieve your cells, eat in moderation - not too much, but not too little. If you are overweight, reduce your usual amount of food by a third. Eat in a way that takes into account your individual characteristics, but the diet should be age-appropriate.
• At the age of 30, if you regularly include liver and nuts in your menu, the first wrinkles will appear later. People over 40 years old benefit from beta-carotene, which is abundant in carrots. After 50 years, calcium is needed, it is good for bones, and magnesium is necessary for the heart, eat dairy products, hard cheeses, drink tea and coffee.
• To maintain your health, you need to properly organize your workplace, you should monitor your posture, to avoid osteochondrosis, do not sit at the computer for more than 5 - 6 hours a day.
• Sex is the fountain of youth. Doctors believe that people who regularly have sex look 14 years younger, because when making love, the body produces endorphins - “happiness hormones”. Regular sex helps strengthen the immune system, but you should not forget about safety measures. • A conscious goal in life will help you live a long time. Nature needs an active person; you should not passively go with the flow, do not allow yourself to be manipulated. People with high self-esteem are less likely to suffer from stress and are less susceptible to various infections.
• Life is motion. Play sports, because even 8 minutes of physical activity a day prolongs your life. Walking strengthens the heart and blood vessels. During physical exercise, growth hormones are released, the production of which decreases after 30 years. Do exercises, fitness, dancing. On vacation, try to lead an active lifestyle - skiing, swimming.
• The temperature in the bedroom during sleep will help prolong youth and longevity - it should not be higher than 18 degrees. This temperature regime is optimal for metabolism, because metabolism depends on the ambient temperature. In general, scientists have found that centenarians tend to have lower body temperatures.
• Try to get enough sleep, because during sleep the body rests, blood pressure normalizes, and healing processes accelerate. During sleep, the brain processes information. If you wake up rested and alert in the morning, it means that your body has rested during sleep.
• Don’t keep negative emotions inside, don’t treat yourself negatively; according to the results of international testing, negative emotions can lead to various diseases, including cancer.
• The secret of longevity is active brain function. Don't forget to train your brain. Solve various crossword puzzles, try to count in your head, not on a calculator. Learn foreign languages. By forcing your brain to work, you will slow down the age-related degradation of mental abilities.
• Give up bad habits - smoking and alcohol. A glass of good red wine is allowed; it contains antioxidants that are beneficial for the cardiovascular system and prevent cancer and other diseases.
• Toughen up. Seasoned people are not susceptible to allergies and colds. Start your morning with a contrast shower; it will not only invigorate you, but it is an excellent hardening procedure. Strengthen your immune system, walk in the fresh air more often, ventilate the room. The food we eat will also help maintain health and longevity and prolong youth. Just replace some products with others.
• Replace red meat with white. White meat is easier to digest, low in fat, but high in protein. White meat contains a lot of selenium and B vitamins.
• Replace sugar with honey. Honey strengthens the immune system. Honey contains many antioxidants, which are anti-aging agents. Honey also prevents age-related changes in the brain.
• Replace sausages, frankfurters, and sausages with white meat or fish. Fish is rich in polyunsaturated healthy fats. Sausages and sausages contain unhealthy fats and other additives. Polyunsaturated fatty acids lower cholesterol levels and reduce the risk of developing blood clots and tumors. Nicotinic acid contained in fish protects against Alzheimer's disease and prevents memory loss.
• Replace milk with fermented milk products and cottage cheese. There is a hypothesis that toxins formed in the intestines and then entering the bloodstream poison the body and cause aging. Populate your intestines with beneficial lactic acid bacteria, drink kefir, yogurt, and biokefir. Eat low-fat cottage cheese to prevent osteoporosis. Cottage cheese contains a lot of calcium, a building material for bones.
• Try not adding enough salt to your food, as salt increases blood pressure and retains water in the body. Replace salt with spices and herbs.
• Replace bread made from premium flour and buns with bran bread and multigrain bread. Bran contains a lot of B vitamins, and the dietary fiber of such bread binds and removes toxins, excess cholesterol and bile acids from the body. Pasta should also be eaten from durum flour. Baking can only lead to excess weight.
• Replace butter with vegetable oil. Vegetable oil lowers cholesterol levels and contains a lot of vitamin E. Butter, on the contrary, can increase cholesterol and contains harmful fats. Buy vegetable oil without chemical purification.
Galina Nabiulina,
chief freelance specialist
Ministry of Health of the Astrakhan Region for Medical Prevention
Strengthening the body and preventing diseases
The list of factors that promote health promotion necessarily includes procedures to strengthen the body and harden it. Improving immune status is a complex event that requires gradual and patient implementation. You can strengthen the body with the help of pharmaceutical drugs that increase defenses (Eleutherococcus, ginseng tincture), homemade herbal remedies, and also through hardening.
Hardening does not necessarily mean swimming in an ice hole and dousing with cold water. To begin with, a regular contrast shower will do: in this case, the temperature difference at the initial stage may be minimal. Hardening the body improves immune status, strengthens the vascular system, stimulates the autonomic nervous system and raises the overall tone of the body.
It is imperative to monitor the state of the psyche and nervous system. Excitement, stress, tension, irritability are the direct causes of early aging. In addition, a nervous state negatively affects physiological processes and contributes to pathological changes in the tissue and cellular structures of the body. And one more thing - if you are angry and nervous, do it openly, do not accumulate negative emotions in yourself.
The list of preventive measures to strengthen and stabilize health necessarily includes body weight control. Excess weight is always an additional risk of cardiac, vascular, endocrine and many other pathologies.
People over 45 years of age are recommended to regularly undergo a full clinical examination: with age, the risk of diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, and coronary heart disease increases significantly. Identifying these and other ailments at an early stage is the basis for successful therapy.
The benefits of a daily routine
How to lead a healthy lifestyle? First, you should review your daily routine. No healthy life schedule can include going to bed after midnight and waking up at 2 pm on weekends. If you don’t have enough time to do things during the day, you need to either reduce the number of tasks or do them faster. This requires a systematic approach to time management.
A rational regime of work and rest involves a reasonable alternation of periods of physical and mental stress with periods of complete relaxation. In other words, sleep should be complete (7-8 hours for an adult) and rest on weekends should be just as complete.
The need for a balanced diet
Any recommendations for a healthy lifestyle must include advice on balanced nutrition.
Healthy eating is a very broad concept (voluminous scientific works have been written about it), but the basic principles of a rational approach to food are as follows:
· Limiting animal fats;
· Significant limitation of animal protein foods (it is recommended to consume mainly dietary meats - poultry, rabbit);
· Inclusion of an increased amount of plant products in the menu;
· Exclusion from the daily diet of “fast” carbohydrates – sweets, baked goods, soda, fast food, chips and other “junk” food;
· Switching to fractional meals (a small amount of food at one time);
· Elimination of late dinner;
· Eating only fresh foods;
· Optimal drinking regime;
· Optimizing the amount of food – it must correspond to energy expenditure;
· Eliminate alcohol, limit coffee and strong tea.
Food must be exclusively natural and contain all the necessary macro- and microelements and vitamins. It is advisable that an individual diet be drawn up by a nutritionist.
