At some level, everyone knows how your lifestyle affects your health. Or at the very least, everyone knows there’s a connection between the way you live and the quality of health you enjoy. However, the situation is ambiguous: in theory, you know that healthy lifestyle practices and habits are important. But you might not always know exactly how your lifestyle affects your health, or when it’s time to make a change.
For that reason, we’ve created this article on how your lifestyle affects your health, and our top tips for improving your health by improving your lifestyle. Having good medical insurance is important, but it’s no replacement for enjoying a good foundation of health. By the time you’ve finished reading this, you’ll not only know how your lifestyle affects your health, but how to change your life to reflect that as well.
How Your Lifestyle Affects Your Health
Poor lifestyle choices are key contributors to the onset and progression of chronic diseases. These diseases are usually preventable, and they can include obesity, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and different types of cancer. Tobacco use, overuse of alcohol, lack of physical activity, and poor diet can all be culprits when you discover that your health is slipping away.
Usually when people talk about improving their health, they tend to focus on things like these; things you can deliberately start doing to improve your health, such as regularly visiting a wellness center for men. But poor health can also result from doing too much. For example, stress is widely recognized as a significant contributor to poor physical health. Stress often results from feeling overworked, dealing with unpleasant people, and failing to spend time relaxing and having fun. In short, health is both about doing the right things — such as working out and cooking healthy meals — but it’s also about taking time for yourself, whether that means spending time reading, playing video games, or taking a minute to do nothing at all.
Of course, when it comes to how your lifestyle affects your health, you’re faced with a significant problem: your lifestyle is the total of all the habits you’ve developed. If you’re like most people, you have more or less the same routine every day: you get up on a certain side of the bed, you brush your teeth and get ready for work in a specific order, and you take the same route to work every morning. Breaking from your routine, such as by taking a new route to work, takes deliberate effort, and sometimes a lot of energy. Even if some of your daily habits are bad for you, it can still be difficult to change them. This is especially the case if you experience an addiction to things like alcohol or smoking.
That being said, change is possible, and it doesn’t have to be as difficult as you might think. If you feel particularly set in your ways, you might benefit from seeing a program like womens health counseling. But for most people, changing their lifestyle is simply a matter of gradually and patiently making small changes. Eventually these little adjustments add up to a completely changed life, and drastically improved health.
There are lots of simple ways to start improving your lifestyle. We’ve compiled our best tips for you below, so you’ll better understand how your lifestyle affects your health.
How to Improve Your Lifestyle and Your Health
As we’ve discussed, it’s easy to get confused when it comes to health and nutrition. With even highly-qualified experts sometimes holding different opinions, you may feel overwhelmed anytime you try to make sense of it.
In some ways, you should approach choosing a diet plan like you would choose a tattoo design at a tattoo shop: you want one that makes sense to you, that suits your goals and body type, and that you’ll probably be happy with for a long time. However, there are lots of niche diets out there, and they all boast great results. How do you choose one among so many?
A good way to approach the world of health and wellness is to find out where the best strategies and ideas tend to overlap. For example, different types of diets may recommend different meal plans, but the best ones all have many things in common. Instead of trying to decide between multiple fad diets, you can simplify matters by applying the handful of things they all recommend.
In this article on how your lifestyle affects your health, we’ll be focusing primarily on health and nutrition tips that are backed by science, and which the majority of health experts would tend to agree on.
Stop Drinking Sugary Drinks
Most people know that soda isn’t good for them, but it might be a surprise to learn that sugary drinks are some of the most fattening things you can put into your body. And this isn’t limited to carbonated drinks: fruit juice, lemonade, sweet tea, and sweetened coffee can be just as bad for you. Just because fruit juice is naturally sweet doesn’t mean those fruit-based sugars aren’t fattening.
Just why is sugar so bad when it’s in liquid form? Although sugar isn’t good for you, no matter what form it takes, your brain doesn’t measure calories from liquid sugar in the same way it does for solid food. So when you drink soda or some fruit juices, you end up consuming more total calories. This is partly why sugary drinks are closely associated with obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease, as well as other health problems.
Many people find themselves almost addicted to drinking soda, but you should at least try cutting back on your sugary drinks. Consider limiting yourself to just one can of soda or one cup of juice per day, and try working down from there.
Start Eating Nuts
If you’ve ever heard that nuts are high in fat, technically you’d be right. But unlike the kinds of fats you would find in processed foods, the fat content in nuts doesn’t negate their amazing health benefits.
The body doesn’t absorb roughly 10-15% of the calories found in nuts. Some experts think this could mean a boost in metabolism, which could help you lose weight.
Additionally, nuts are loaded with magnesium, fiber, vitamin E, and several other nutrients. Studies have demonstrated that nuts can help you lose weight, and they may even help fight against type 2 diabetes and heart disease. For an easy way to start boosting your nutrition and weight loss efforts, start snacking on mixed nuts instead of processed snack items like crackers or cookies.
Stay Away from Processed Junk Food
Your grandma’s homemade cookies and cakes might have been fattening, but baked treats made from scratch are almost healthy compared to processed dessert items. Snack cakes, candy, and store-bought baked goods are often made out of cheap ingredients, and filled with sugar, trans fats, and questionable preservatives. Not only that, but they’re typically engineered to trigger your brain’s pleasure centers, which can result in exaggerated cravings to eat more of them. It’s great for the bottom line of food companies, but it’s not good at all for your waistline.
Of course, everyone loves a sweet treat now and then, and this kind of information can be disappointing to people. But it doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy sweet things. The next time you go shopping, look for healthier alternatives to popular snack foods. There are lots of packaged cookies, candies, and cakes that have been minimally processed, with healthier (often organic) ingredients. Better yet, try taking up cooking on your own. Nothing is more delicious or satisfying than biting into a fresh-baked cookie you made yourself.
Remodel the Kitchen
We realize we’re deviating a little from hard science here, but hear us out: according to a Houzz study, one-third of homeowners claim to start living a healthier lifestyle after remodeling their kitchen. While this is more psychological than anything else, the fact remains that when you make improvements to one area of your life, you automatically start wanting to change other areas for the better.
This applies to more than just kitchen remodeling. If you went to have laser teeth whitening done, you would probably feel motivated to take better care of your oral health. This would likely spill over into improving other aspects of your life, such as by watching your diet. When you improve yourself in one way, it inspires you with the energy and willpower to focus on other positive changes to make.
This is partly why success gurus rave about the benefits of making your bed first thing in the morning: it’s not just about having a nicely made bed to come home to at night, it’s about starting your day with success, so you’re more likely to practice excellence in the rest of your day. So to give yourself a boost of energy and inspiration for improving your health, why not try remodeling your kitchen?
Try Exercising (Especially Cardio)
Doing aerobic exercises, also known as cardio workouts, is one of the single best things you can do for your health, both physically and mentally. You probably already know that running on the treadmill or taking Pilates classes could help you lose weight, but did you know that exercise also boosts your mood? Aerobic exercise in particular is great for boosting feelings associated with happiness and wellbeing (hence the famous term “runner’s high”). People who struggle with anxiety or depression often use exercise to help keep their mood in a positive, healthy place.
Sadly for many people, physical exercise is pretty high on their list of things they dislike. To coax yourself into exercising more, try combining a regular workout routine with a relaxing, pleasurable activity. Maybe listening to audiobooks during your run would make it enjoyable for you. Or you could follow up your weekly workout at the gym with a relaxing trip to the medspa.
Take Care of Your Skin
Did you know that your body’s largest organ is your skin? Yet if you’re like most people, you probably don’t think about your skin’s health that much. If you think about it, it’s surprising that we take something like our skin for granted, considering that it’s constantly exposed to the elements, warding off everything from environmental chemicals to harmful bacteria.
You can improve the health of your skin by being mindful of what you subject it to. While you should wash your hands often and shower daily, avoid using soaps and detergents that are hard on your skin. This goes for your hair, too. Look for shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and hand soap that are paraben-free and made to be gentle on the skin.
You should also make it a point to receive dermatology services from a qualified dermatologist, especially if you suffer from skin disorders of any kind.
Finally, remember to wear a high-quality sunscreen whenever you spend time outside during sunny weather. Doing without can result in faster aging and even skin cancer.
Consider Trying CBD Oil
Many people praise the benefits of CBD oil, especially in recent years as it’s gotten more media attention. CBD, or cannabidiol, is one out of more than 100 different chemical compounds found in the cannabis, or marijuana, plant. Unlike THC, which is the primary psychoactive cannabinoid that causes you to get high, CBD is not psychoactive. This means you may get to enjoy the purported health benefits of the cannabis plant without getting high.
Science-backed benefits of CBD oil can include the following:
- Pain relief
- Reduction in anxiety and depression
- Alleviation of cancer-related symptoms
- Acne reduction
- Assistance in coping with neurological disorders
- Improvement in heart health
- Assistance in substance abuse treatment
There are other examples of possible benefits you may experience from using CBD oil, but these are some of the most prominent ones. Whether you suffer from a neurological disorder or simply want to try its effects on helping anxiety, find a CBD health store and discover the benefits of CBD oil.
By now you should better understand how your lifestyle affects your health, and you’ve also learned several science-supported tips for improving your health. The next time you go shopping, keep in mind all the examples of how your lifestyle affects your health, and make purchases accordingly. You’ll be glad you chose to take your health seriously.
