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When you take care of your mind and body, you feel better. You have more energy to hang out with your friends or play football with your children, and you’re excited about getting off the couch for activities like hiking and swimming.
But being healthy doesn’t have to mean running 10 miles every day or only eating leaves for breakfast, lunch, and dinner — it just might mean making a few simple lifestyle changes. Here are a few ways to improve your personal wellness.
Eat Healthy
Eating healthy doesn’t have to mean restrictive diets that never let you snack on the cookies, cupcakes, or chocolate that you most enjoy. In fact, these restrictive diets often fail; they lead to binging unhealthy snacks and ultimately have the opposite effect. The most sustainable way to eat healthy is eating everything in moderation, and trying to get as many nutrients in your diet as you can. To do this, try meal prepping vegetables and healthy proteins — like chicken, shrimp, or tofu — on Sundays or Mondays and using them for lunches and dinners throughout the week. If you have a sweet tooth, make sure you always have healthy alternatives to sugar in the house so that you are snacking on strawberries instead of candies. If you’re really craving for some chocolate, try this organic chocolate bar instead. However, make sure you leave a couple nights a week for you to enjoy a piece of cake with your evening tea. Keep yourself motivated to avoid junk foods by visiting the dentist regularly. You can help make your teeth feel good with the dentist in tamarac.
Get Enough Sleep
Getting enough sleep can be hard when you just want to finish that Netflix show you’ve been binging, but it’s critical for your health. A lack of sleep can negatively affect your mood, weaken your immune system, decrease your focus and productivity, and even lead to serious health conditions like diabetes or heart disease. There are a few things you can do to maximize the likelihood of a good night’s rest. Avoid alcohol and large meals close to bedtime, and make sure you plug your phone in far away from your bed to avoid potential distractions. Instead of watching Netflix in bed, read a book or listen to your favorite podcast before you drift off to sleep.
Drink Lots of Water
On a busy work day, it can be hard to remember to drink enough water — especially if you have other, perhaps tastier and more sugary, drinks in your refrigerator. However, water has incredible health benefits; it improves mood and memory, increases energy, improves exercise performance, reduces headaches, and manages weight and anxiety, among other things. The official recommendation from the National Health Service is to drink 8 cups of water every day.
With that said, you should make sure that you have clean and safe water to drink at home. If you’re not sure if your tap provides you with clean drinking water, you could consider purchasing a water softener, which removes chemicals from hard water to make your water safer and taste better.
Exercise
Exercise comes in all shapes, sizes, and forms. Exercise can be a walk on a trail near your house, a weight lifting session at your gym, swimming laps at the pool, or even dancing to music with your friends — among countless other activities. Regardless, exercise has important health benefits, helping control your weight, reducing your risk of heart disease, improving your mental health, and strengthening your bones and muscles.
Meditate
Keeping yourself healthy extends to the health of your mind, which is why meditation is so important. Anyone can meditate, as long as you have a comfortable spot in which to sit and time for a 5 minute break during your busy day. Meditation can help keep you calm and peaceful, and can help you work through stressful situations and decrease anxiety. Meditation is not just for the yogis, but rather for anyone who wants to improve their mental health.
Meeting your personal wellness goals doesn’t have to be difficult. Follow these simple steps and you’ll be feeling like your best self in no time.
