The benefits of healthy habits

There are many good reasons to live a healthy lifestyle. Every people have a different reason why they choose to live healthy and follow strict healthy habits on daily basis. The motivation comes from knowing their reasons. Why they do what they do.

Deep inside, unconsciously, they know that health is the only thing that enables us to do and achieve other things.

To some people think that being healthy is going to the doctor or having a health insurance. They are mistaken. When you need to show your insurance card or take pills, it's too late. Health is not being disease free, it's enable to live the life in full potential.

 

Health is, among other things for example to:

• Wake up refreshed in the morning.
• Be mostly in a good mood.
• Be able to do the things you like after work.
• Be drug-free.
• Be motivated to do new things.
• Enjoy life.

Health is an optimal state of mental- and physical well-being, which are closely linked.

 

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How to live a healthy lifestyle

Lifestyle medicine has defined six most important health areas. Here are the six pillars of lifestyle medicine:

Nutrition

Food has normally the biggest impact. Eat plant-based foods that are fiber-filled, nutrient dense, health-promoting and disease-fighting. Consider veggies, fruits, beans, lentils, whole grains, nuts and seeds as priority #1 choice.” Optimally choose fresh local foods free of chemicals. Occasionally enjoy quality fish and meat if these fit to your diet.

Movement

Regular and consistent physical activity that can be maintained on a daily basis throughout life — walking, gardening, push ups and lunges — is an essential piece of the optimal health equation. Any movement is good.

Substance use

The well-documented dangers of tobacco use include an increased risk of many cancers, heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Cessation counseling combined, when necessary, with medications, helps patients successfully quit the bad habit.

Stress Management

Can lead to improved health and productivity — or to anxiety, depression, obesity, immune dysfunction and poor health outcomes. Helping patients recognize negative stress responses, leading to coping mechanisms and stress reduction techniques leads to improved health and well-being.

Relationships

Social connectedness is essential to our emotional resiliency and overall health. Studies show that isolation and loneliness are associated with increased mortality, especially among individuals already diagnosed with lifestyle-related conditions.

Sleep

Lack of, or poor quality, sleep can lead to decreased ability to recover from illness, a strained immune system and chronic disease. Identify dietary, environmental and coping behaviors to improve sleep health.

 

 

Why it is important to live a healthy lifestyle?

Without health you have no energy, no money, no happiness, no clear thinking, no deep sleep and no recovery - just pain and daily struggle. Maybe you know what we mean because unfortunately some of us can't appreciate health before we lose it.

The good news are that anyone of us can choose to live healthy making better daily choices and gain back their vitality. Developing healthy habits is the key for optimal physical and mental health - the most import thing in life.

For a long-term behavioral change all of us need motivation - a real good reason to make the change. Choose your own personal reason and never forget that! It will motivate you to keep going when might be falling back to old patters.

Here a few a reasons why you need to live healthy:

1. More energy

Biggest misconception is that we just have energy, but actually we produce energy by digesting food, by sleeping, moving, breathing and you need all the functions in synergy to produce energy.

We humans are not to live a sedentary lifestyle. Regular exercise provides more energy in two ways. First, it improves your cardiovascular system, making your heart and lungs work more efficiently and delivering oxygen and nutrients to your muscles more quickly. Second, exercise helps to build muscle tissue, and muscle tissue is very efficient at burning calories. The more muscle tissue you have, the more calories you'll burn even when you're at rest.

Energy enables everything we do. It enables you to get out of bed, work focused, use your brain, and have fun after the work. We even need energy to digest the food you eat to produce more energy.

What would you do with 10% more energy?

2. Turn on the good genes

90% of your health and lifespan are your habits and the environment. The rest, about 10% are your genes. Important is not the genes you were given but how they express themselves, which is surprisingly called: Gene expression. ?

Every action you take somehow affects how your genes work. Food being the biggest influencer, but exercise, sleeping rhythm and stress all seems to play a role.

Epigenetics and nutriepigenomics has shown how lifestyle factors like unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, and tobacco use create the biological risk factors for chronic non-autoimmune diseases such as cardiovascular disease, T2DM, and Alzheimer’s disease that are preventable.

Overly simplified, bad habits turn of the bad genes that can manifest itself as chronic conditions.

We all know that when conceiving the baby receives 50% of their genes from you and 50% from your partner. What most people don't know is that you are transferring the expressed genes forward, not the ones you got from your parents. It's also clearly show that stress affects the baby long before they are born. So when you are trying to get healthy or making a baby, take a few months to life as healthy as you can to which on the best genes you possibly can.

3. Lose weight

To be specific, most of us want to get rid of adipose tissue, or fat as we normally call it. Everyone's goal is the get their ideal body, which usually means less fat, more muscle.

How to begin losing weight? Sugar is one of the worst things for your health. It not only makes you fat, but it's proven to also leads to chronic inflammation, which has been linked to a host of chronic diseases, including heart disease and cancer. The second is alcohol, which have zero benefits (excluding being a social lubricant), but contains a lot of empty calories.

Cutting out of excess alcohol and sugar has a profound impact to health and these two alone will help you shed several pounds of fat in a few months.

4. Be happy and smart

We already mentioned sugar, that can have a negative impact on your brain function. Studies have shown that sugar can lead to cognitive decline and memory loss. Sugar, lack of mandatory nutrients and unhealthy metabolic health literally makes us dumber.

It's proven undeniable that exercise is the best cure for depression and many doctors are now prescribing exercise to their patients.

Just move! Low-intensity exercise activity spurs the release of proteins called neurotrophic or growth factors. These cause nerve cells to grow and make new connections that is referred as neuroplasticity.

Even as simple as sleeping enough and setting your circadian-rhythm contribute to emotional well-being and reduce depression by balancing hormones.

Proper nutrition and healthy habits in general improve positive thinking, cognitive impairment and chronic diseases.

New research shows that people who consume high amounts of ultra-processed foods have significantly more adverse mental health symptoms.

 

5. Live longer

You probably say: "But I want to live now." Yes, but you can still choose to eat quality food, take a walk, or reduce alcohol consumption. Would that really be that bad?

Current research estimates that 90% of our lifespan is up to ourselves - our daily habits.

6. Look more attractive

Skin quality improves. All chronic conditions, especially skin issues like eczema and atopic dermatitis, emerges from the low level inflammation that some call “type 2 inflammation”. When the body gets all the nutrients and minerals it needs to to function optimally the low level inflammation reduces and the body has all it needs to constantly heal the skin.

Strength training builds some muscles, because usually lifestyle change gives more energy and you intuitively start to move more.

Recovering faster from injury and illness. Get more energy, because when you feel better you have more energy to do things. You are in a positive loop.

Do you want to be among people who live a healthy lifestyle, good skin quality, and well-formed body?

7. Save money

How much money do you spend on quality food and how much on unhealthy substances? Make the calculation and you might be surprised.

Can wealth buy health? Not really. If you need to take drugs and go to a hospital your physical condition is suffering from the side-effects and your wallet too. No matter how wealthy someone is until and unless they are not leading a healthy lifestyle, exercising or having a healthy diet their health is going to deteriorate eventually. Having money can give you access to a better gym with better amenities or to an expensive club but in the end, you need to go and put the effort into it by doing exercise. Good health can be achieved just by eating the normal staple balanced diet and staying physically active even if it’s by jogging in the park.

Also the time you lose your health, there is no way to earn a living.

Studies show a clear positive correlation between good health and higher income.

8. Self-image improves and self-confidence gets a boost

A positive self-image and confidence are important for achieving success in life. A healthy lifestyle can help you feel good about yourself and give you the confidence to pursue your goals.

Healthy habits like eating right, exercising, and getting enough sleep can help you feel better about yourself and give you the energy to take on whatever life throws your way.

How would you feel if you would lost 10 pounds or get a perfect skin?

9. Better social connections

Have you ever wondered why good-looking healthy people are more successful or why there are beautiful people in TV? It's unfair but a fact that attractive people are more considered more intelligent, dominant, sociable, and skilled. But every knows that to actually be good looking one needs to have self-confidence, attractive body, and healthy looking skin.

People want to have healthy people as their friend and spend their time with happy, high-functional, healthy looking people, as their friends in life.

10. Long-term success

Health is wealth. You need health to go to work and be productive. It's needed the most in the world to strive for great wealth and future.

If you could get 10% more energy, 10% less expenses, look 10% better, or lose 10% of your fat tissue, what do you think the consequences are in the next ten years?

You will simply get more done and focus when you feel good, have more energy, and less days spend sick.

Even if you would get rich with the expense of you healthy, you wouldn't be able to enjoy the money. Health comes first and riches are it's side product.

Take a look of successful people. Do they generally look sick or healthy?

 

 

Invest in your health

Everybody wants to be healthy but not all are ready to do the work required to be healthy. If you begin to build a healthy lifestyle start by being mindful of your food choices, managing your stress, being physically active, avoiding risky substance use, getting plenty of sleep and having a strong emotional support system in your life to powerfully prevent, treat, and, often, even reverse chronic disease and select autoimmune conditions.

To develop a healthy habit begins investing 1-10 minutes and some focus daily. To make a complete U-turn to lifestyle takes about 1-3 hours daily, which is still way less than most people work on daily basis.  

The choice is all yours. All we tell that in the next two years you can easily learn how you behave, change your habits and get the results you are looking for. Investing ten minutes daily can have a huge impact in your health if you are able to create a healthy habit.

If you can improve a couple of areas and make a lasting routine the benefits are huge in the long-term.

How to start living a healthy lifestyle?

Setting goals itself has many benefits.  Goals help us navigate in life and guide our daily choice making process.

Do not skip setting a goal just because you failed to achieve one in the past.

Here are our suggestions how to begin changing towards healthier lifestyle:

Nutrition is the key

Eat as much quality foods as you can afford. Minimize highly processed foods and drink enough water. Getting healthy does not get much cheaper and simpler than that.

Maximize sleep

Sleep at least 7 hours of restful sleep.

Reduce negative behavior

Find some positive habit that suits you and it will automatically reduce tobacco, alcohol and stress. You can for example go outside to the sunshine or practice gratitude regularly.

Be in good company

Surround yourself with people you like. The people around you have a huge impact how you live your life.

Move

The misconception that one totally need revamp their life and do sports hours per week. No, just don't sit the whole day and keep yourself busy with activities you like.

Small change, big impact

There are infinite ways to take control of your health.

If you have previously decided to make a lifestyle change or tried to change your habits and failed, that should not be a reason not to try again. Everybody fails once in a while when building healthy habits.

New research and understanding of how to live a healthy life, and tools to help you make the change, is constantly coming out. With the Habinator app, you can create a plan for yourself using the principles of lifestyle medicine and get help from the community or hire a wellness coach to help you.

You can achieve anything you set your mind to, and that includes living a healthy lifestyle. It's never too late to start making healthy choices, and the sooner you start, the better. Every healthy decision you make is one step closer to achieving your goals. So don't wait any longer, get started today and live the healthy life you deserve.

Take a look at the list above, choose the most important reason for you to build healthy lasting habits. Then take action and never forget the reason why you started.