by Your body shouldn’t be what defines you as a person, but your health and wellbeing depend on it…
Your body is like a shield or a shell, what you inhabit and what the world sees at a glance. How you treat it can determine how long you live, your overall health, your fitness, and even your psychology and happiness. Since it’s so important, most people try to do what they can to take care of it. The best things for your body are surprisingly simple, and not too hard to incorporate into your lifestyle.
1. Don’t sit still for too long
Sitting still for hours on end is one of the worst things you can do to your body, and on the other end of the spectrum exercise improves health and increases your lifespan.
What’s wrong with your desk job? The Mayo Clinic warns for four hours or more a day can increase your risk of dying from any cause by 50 percent. Make sure to stand up throughout the day and get in enough exercise, ideally 150 minutes a week.
2. Sleep
Many people work hard from 9 to 5 but then forget about the most important 8-hour schedule, your 11 to 7 nightly sleep. According to the NIH, sleep has many functions.
- Brain health and cognitive functioning
- Memory formation
- Repairing cells and tissues
- Maintaining a healthy immune system
- Regulating blood sugar
- Balancing hormones
- Influences Mood
The benefits are seemingly endless, so if you’re searching for a miracle for your health, look no further.
3. Meditate
It might sound a bit new-age, but researchers have been looking into meditation’s benefits for years, and dozens of studies have proven its worth, no matter what kind of lifestyle or personality you have.
According to the American Psychological Association, meditation helps people focus more on the present to create a sense of mindfulness. The physiological benefits of this Buddhist tradition?
- Lees stress
- Improved memory and cognition
- Emotional stability
- Increased focus
- Better immune functioning
To meditate, you just need to sit in a quiet place and focus in on your breathing, which is harder than you think.
Accept your thoughts as they come, then go back to your breathing. It helps if you ease into it, starting off by practicing a few minutes each day, gradually increasing the time.
4. Protect against the sun
While it’s true, we need the sun to produce vitamin D, too much exposure increases your risk for burns, skin damage, and cancer.
According to the Skin Cancer Foundation, the sun causes about 90 percent of nonmelanoma skin cancers, or about 3.15 million cases a year.
Use sunscreen, wear clothes that cover your skin and use sunglasses to protect your eyes.
5. Fiber up
The NIH recommends adults eat between 21 to 38 grams of fiber a day. You can get it from many fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
Among its many benefits, the Harvard School of Public Health says it can do the following.
- Reduce your risk of coronary heart disease by 40 percent
- Reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes
- Help prevent inflammation in the intestine or diverticulitis
- Encourage regular bowel movements
- May prevent colon cancer and breast cancer
Since fiber is a study substance that isn’t broken down during digestion, it also fills up your stomach, so you feel full for longer and can be an effective way to help manage weight.
6. Quit dieting
According to ABC News, 108 million Americans are on a diet, and they spend over $20 billion on weight loss each year. Clearly, weight is a problem, but most people go about losing it in the wrong way.
Unfortunately, the best diet plan isn’t a “diet” per say. Instead, it’s a lifelong way of eating.
The New York Times published an in-depth article in 2016 explaining dieting doesn’t work because our brains are designed to maintain a certain weight. In fact, 41 percent of dieters gain back more weight than they lost within five years and teenage girls who diet are 12 times more likely to binge eat later on.
The bottom line? Don’t buy into miracle diets.
7. Embrace your sexuality
Once taboo, sex is something flaunted in ads and on TV. Although it might be glaring, studies show there’re a lot of good reasons to embrace your sexuality.
- Increases immunity
- Gives you a workout
- Relieves stress
- Reduces the risk of prostate cancer
- Improves sleep
- Increases self-esteem
These are just some of the benefits, and you can probably think of a few more.
Living a long and healthy life means taking care of your body. That doesn’t mean stressing out about all of the dangerous things in the world or the things you shouldn’t do.
Instead, it just means being more conscious and making healthier choices, some of which you’ll enjoy.
