Tips for living a healthy lifestlye

Photo by William Choquette: https://www.pexels.com/photo/an-on-treadmill-1954524/

Living a healthy lifestyle is one of the most important things you can do (there would be a huge argument for it being the most important thing in your life). When you are living a healthy lifestyle you'll feel happier, and fitter, have a better connection with your loved ones, reduce the chances of you getting ill (and recover from illness quicker) and most importantly, it contributes to a positive mental well-being.

There are many factors that contribute to a healthy lifestyle that you can work on. You can improve your fitness and exercise, you can improve your diet, drink more water, concentrate on how many hours of sleep you are getting, socialise with your friends and more. In a lot of instances, you may be doing well in one area of your life, such as getting enough exercise each week, but other areas may not be as strong, such as you may not be drinking enough water each day.

If you are not feeling your best at the moment, or you are simply looking at other ways to improve your lifestyle in a positive light, keep on reading. Below we have put together nine areas of your life that you may need to improve, in order to live a healthy lifestyle.

Exercise weekly

As you can imagine, one of the first areas to consider when trying to improve your lifestyle is to pay attention to how much exercise you are getting. Ask yourself, how much exercise are you getting in a week? The goal should be exercising two to three times a week. If you aren't achieving this, try to make an active effort to improve. Consider joining a sports team and playing football, rugby, basketball or anything that you are interested in – sports are a great way to meet new people and make new friends. If you prefer to exercise alone, consider running, swimming, cycling or joining a gym. The more you exercise the better your overall fitness will be.

Drink enough water

There are so many benefits to drinking enough water. Not only will it help you concentrate more, but it will also reduce the chances of you getting ill as well as reduce fatigue. The goal should be that you drink around 2 to 3 litres of water a day. Start by downloading a water-tracking app and keep an eye on how much you are drinking each day. If you are below the recommended amount, you can then make changes to improve.

Get enough sleep

So many people in the world don't get enough sleep which can be very detrimental to your overall health. Sleep allows your body to recover, relax and repair. Depending on your age, it is recommended you get around 7-9 hours of sleep each day, which surprisingly a lot of people don't do. If you think you are someone who doesn't, start to keep track of your sleep and have this as an area to work on. Fitness watches are a great way to track your sleep or a sleep diary. When you start to get more sleep on a regular basis, you will find various areas of your life improving very quickly – to start with, you may find your mood feels better and you snap less.

Socialising with your friends and family

When you are looking after yourself, it shouldn't be down to only improving your diet, exercising more and getting enough sleep. Part of living a healthy lifestyle involves your mental well-being, being good. An area of your life that can help your mental well-being is your social life. Seeing your friends and family members is so important as it can boost your happiness, give you a sense of belonging, give you people to talk to and see your friends is fun. Try to give yourself a day or two a week when you see your friends or family members.

Concentrate on your diet

We can't write an article on living a healthy lifestyle without mentioning your diet. Along with exercising more, your diet is very important as eating the right foods can benefit you tremendously. An unhealthy diet can lead to obesity, illness and sluggishness which isn't fun and can give you a negative mindset. Aim to eat at least 5 pieces of fruit and vegetables a day and reduce fast food throughout the month. A way to get more vegetables in your diet is to cook with them and include them in your sauces. The easy one to start with is adding peas and sweetcorn into your bolognese sauce, as this way you don't realise you are eating them. If you need help with healthy immune function, you could take some supplements to support your diet.

Reduce unhealthy habits

There are some habits in our lives that can be very unhealthy which you should consider cutting down on. For example, if you smoke, you should consider stopping as this is very bad for you. Drinking too much alcohol is also very bad and detrimental to your health as well as substance abuse. Of course, we don't expect you to give every bad habit up completely, but remember, you can enjoy things in moderation, instead of every day.

Get outdoors daily

Get yourself outdoors daily and enjoy the vitamin D sunlight gives you. It's been proven that being outside can improve your mood as well as get you active, as chances are you will be walking around. Being outside will help reduce depression and give you the chance to breathe in some fresh air, instead of being indoors all day. If you struggle to get outside much, due to work, try to set a challenge to have at least 30 minutes a day and then improve on this in the future. On the weekends or when you have some extra time, try to factor in longer walks like a hike along the countryside or a long walk along the beach. As well as getting vitamin D and breathing in some air, you'll be exercising and burning plenty of calories.

Practise mindfulness and meditation

There is a lot to be said about mindfulness and meditation. The more studies that have been done, the more we are seeing the huge benefits that practising mindfulness and meditation has on people's lives. Try and give yourself a few minutes a day to work on your mindfulness and then increase this as time goes by. The more you do it, the more you will benefit from it. If you haven't used Calm before, this is a great app that supports mindfulness and meditation. When looking, you may also have various meditation classes that take place in your local area that you can join and benefit from.

Educate yourself

Just like this article is helping educate you on ways to improve your lifestyle, there are many more articles that you can read that will also help you. By educating yourself, you can learn about your overall well-being and the importance of looking after it. Learning for a start is very good for your mental well-being, it can also help you in other areas of your life, such as your work life, helping you improve and push for a promotion. If you want to sign up for an online course on fitness and well-being, there are many courses online that you can sign up for and enjoy in the comfort of your own home. Alternatively, YouTube is also a great place to look if you are after some videos from a health influencer.

Be kind to yourself

For our final point, be kind to yourself. A lot of the time, people put too much pressure on themselves to be living a healthy lifestyle which can have the opposite effect and cause stress. In life, appreciate all the things you are doing well in your life as there will be a lot of things when you start to reflect. It's ok to not always be at your best, but it's good to know what parts of your life you should be trying to improve as well as know the things you are doing well.

Summary

Prioritising your well-being will have many positive effects on your day-to-day life. If you are feeling down or under the weather, by making some changes to your daily habits, you will quickly see the benefits. The good thing about living a healthy lifestyle is that when you are making positive changes, the effects can happen very quickly. You may also find some new passions and interests by being more active, socialising with friends or getting outdoors daily.

What advice would you give to your friends or family members who are trying to improve and live a healthy lifestyle? Which of the above tips do you think will make the biggest change to people's lives? Is there anything missing in our guide that you think we should be adding? Let us know in the comment box below, we look forward to hearing from you.