Taking better care of yourself to achieve optimal health and wellness should be a goal for everyone. We live busy lives where sometimes we let things slip by. It’s a tough habit to break, but an important one to do because health really matters. Lifestyle changes are often what’s required to turn the sailboat around and head in a better direction; shortcuts are the enemy of the good.
Here are five things you can do to improve your health and wellness to look and feel better.
Daily Exercise for Heart Health
Exercising for 30 minutes every day is a simple action to give your heart a workout; not just yourself. It gets to beat a little faster to pump blood around the body to feed oxygen where it needs to go. Your muscle fibers start firing, and tendons stretch a little to get into gear.
When exercising even a modest amount 5-6 days a week, your body responds well. If you haven’t been moving much every day due to living a sedentary lifestyle and even perhaps having put on a few extra pounds, then performing a modest amount of daily exercise is a great way to get started again.
If you tend to get bored working out in a gym, try mixing things up. Exercise is valid whether it’s playing a game of racquetball with a friend, walking around to spot the local sights you haven’t had time to see, or jogging around the park. As long as your heart rate is increased and your body is moving, that’s all that matters. Don’t over-complicate things with exacting plans about what fitness regime to follow. Keep it simple.
Healthier Diet for Functional Support
We eat and drink to feed our bodies what it needs to function properly. When eating junk food, it’s more difficult to process and find the nutrients. This tends to hinder our performance that day. If you are overeating, feeling sluggish is likely the result along with possible weight gain too.
In this instance, you should choose a healthier diet that suits you. That might be a ketogenic, vegetarian, or a Mediterranean diet, or something else entirely. Each diet has its pros and cons.
For instance, the Keto diet is based around a high protein, low carbohydrate meal plan that reduces sugar in the bloodstream to stabilize insulin levels. It also moves the body away from a reliance on carbohydrates for quick energy.
By contrast, a Mediterranean diet is based more on fresh vegetables, lean meats and plenty of olive oil and fruits. Different diets work for different people; no one size fits all. However, we all know what an unhealthy diet looks like when we’re honest about it.
It also matters how much specialized shopping, preparation and cooking is required with a new diet. If it’s too difficult or time consuming, it doesn’t matter how healthy it might have been because only the most determined will stick with it. And, most of us are not that determined.
Yoga for Flexibility
Yoga is known as a form of exercise that promotes calmness and wellness. While it doesn’t look difficult to observers, moving into a position and holding it is more challenging than it appears. Performing a series of controlled movements requires strength in different muscle groups. Not unsurprisingly, it’s possible to perspire more than you’d expect when performing yoga for 20-30 minutes.
For anyone who needs a deeper challenge, an alternative option such as hot yoga gets the body pushing harder. Hot yoga is best for people well-experienced with yoga.
Using yoga to improve balance, flexibility, posture, strength and control are just some of the benefits. It’s a portable workout, so it doesn’t require a gym or equipment other than a yoga mat. As such, it’s inexpensive and adaptable to different circumstances.
If you travel a lot, then resistance bands are a good second option to pack that takes up less space. Using these bands and body weight exercises, you can maintain optimal health from anywhere.
Regular Dental Checkups for Better Oral Health
It’s often overlooked, but oral health isn’t something to discount. None of us enjoy a dental appointment for fear of discomfort or pain, but most appointments are only mildly uncomfortable. The benefits are significant for your overall health, making it worth it.
When you do not see a dentist for long periods, tooth decay can develop without you even realizing it. There’s typically no pain in the early stage of decay, so you could have it happen and not even know it. Without getting a dental checkup regularly, these types of oral health issues don’t get handled promptly enough. Sometimes, this can even lead to losing a tooth, or several, if it develops into gum disease. For effective health and wellness, all aspects should be included.
CBD for Symptomatic Relief
CBD products are selling well with people choosing capsules, drops, gummies or tropical cream treatment options. People who take CBD in one form or another often report a reduction or elimination in everyday aches and pains. Back problems and knee irritation may improve with the use of a CBD topical cream like that available from this website.
Be sure to source any CBD products from reliable manufacturers because quality does differ between brands. Ensure that it’s independently tested for purity and that it’s solvent free. Brands with a bit of history behind them is also something to look for when deciding which product to purchase.
Being mindful of our health is important because when poor health hits us, we lose most desire to engage with life. The sunsets look less impressive, food doesn’t taste as good and travel is out of the question because who wants to sit on plane when feeling lousy? The trick is to care for our health before our careless inattention comes back to bite us. A few steps in the right direction every day and you’ll be all the better for it. Sure, you’re busy, but don’t let that stop you from taking better care.
Photo by Emma Simpson
Milo Senalle
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