Aging is inevitable as it is part of life. It is an event in our life that is constantly happening day by day. After all, nothing is more constant in this world than change. Coping with change is difficult, especially as you age. You might encounter difficulties and different transition including your health.
Contrary to what people believe that old age means memory loss, poor health and disability; there are ways to embrace the change to avoid this and we call it healthy aging.
Handling ones’ self through maintaining physical health, keeping the sense of purpose and zest for life is what healthy aging is all about. It means taking care of yourself and leaving the fears of growing old behind. The formula to a healthy aging is pretty simple and we sum it up below:
Find new meaning and joy
If you age you are still capable of being happy. You may not be able to do the thing you enjoy the most when you were young, but you can always discover new things you can fully enjoy to have a meaningful life.
Stay connected to the people you love
The most feared changes in aging are keeping all the people that surround you. Loneliness and isolation will only age you bad, so stay connected to the people you love. Keep an active social life. Remember, old age won’t hinder you from making new friends.
Boost your vitality
Don’t fall for the saying that aging will deteriorate you from doing things in physical ways. And yes it’s true that you will have a little discomfort and disability. But these won’t totally impair your chances in doing physical activities such as jogging and cycling.
Living a healthy life means having a good mental and emotional health. Take these easy lifestyle habits that will improve both your emotional and mental health. Live life to fullest and never settle for less.
Regular exercise – keeps your body active and even a short walk every morning will do.
Practice a balance diet – a balance diet means a healthier you. And a healthier you means healthier way to live life.
Discover your life’s purpose – its hard living in a life without knowing your purpose. So unfold your mission in life to make a difference. That way you know where your life will be headed.
Don’t badmouth others – If you don’t like a person, at least say it directly to his/her face. It’s never a good act to badmouth or stab others behind the back.
Do kind deeds – Was it very fulfilling to do a kind act every day? Knowing you’d make a person smile by helping them without them even asking is always very rewarding, a feeling no words can explain.
Let loose, have fun and do crazy things – There is no absolute things in life. Dance ‘till you heart stops beating. Sing at the top of your lungs. Enjoy your life, because you’d only have once in a lifetime chance to do all those things. You are only young once.
Forgive and forget – Forgive those who have done you wrong and the others you’d done wrong will also forgive you.
It is not only chemical like vices and habits that are detrimental to the human health. Some are also lifestyle habits, physiologically and emotionally, which also directly affects our total health. Here are some of them:
Holding a grudge – This won’t only make you feel unhappy, but would also totally make you feel sick. To name a few, the feeling of ill-will triggers the body to agitation and stress. Or worst, it could lead to high blood pressure and heart disease. So if you have been holding your anger for a long time, then maybe it’s time to let it go.
Overeating - We all love to eat, and surely, this habit is undeniably hard to avoid, especially during holiday season. Overeating causes different maladies; weight gain being the obvious. Overeating causes health problems such as high cholesterol and kidney troubles. If it’s possible, keep the amount of food you eat in moderate level. Best if you add varieties so you would not be stuck in one type of food.
Under-eating - While being too extreme in eating is not good, eating less is also a way for health to suffer. Not getting enough food into your body means the system is not getting enough vitamins and nutrient it gets. Because of this, the immune system of the body weakens, which is the body’s natural protection to repel diseases.
The very first step to live a long and healthier life is no doubt cutting out vices, or even just lowering them. An unhealthy habit causes an unhealthy you. If the problem will not be addressed properly, it is not just the health that would suffer, but the entire life that you’ll be living. So what are those vices that should be lessen, or best avoided? Here are the top two of them:
Smoking
Smoking kills: is just one of the health warning messages on tobacco packages. Cigarette smoking is a proven vice that greatly affects the human health. But ditching the habit behind would be really hard. To give motivation, did you know that after being smoke-free for about 20 minutes your body will start to feel changes in decrease in blood pressure and normal pulse rate.
Drugs
Doing drugs is extremely dangerous to the entire human body. When drugs enter the body and are carried to reach on all parts of the body, it has many different effects. If it enters the bloodstream, the heart pumps blood containing the drugs and would reach the brain. Take this: when drug reaches the brain, it’ll control our way of thinking and affects the flow of information into our brain. If it directly reaches the heart, it will exacerbate heart disease. The liver would also be damage because of the chemical structure of drugs the liver tries to break down. Drugs enters to the body by sniffing or snorting, and then by mouth.
No matter what we’ve gone through life – good or bad – all we ever wanted is to live a life that’s been completely healthy, simple and happy. But there are certain habits, a part of our lifestyle, that are hindering us to be completely healthy to enjoy life fully. That is vices that affect our health.
Some of these vices, such as smoking and drugs, day by day affect the human health badly. Though it is a widely known fact that smoking and drugs are unlikely habits, others are still doing these vices because it makes them awake, keeps their system alive. Dependence on this substance is determined as psychological vices. One suffers because of lack of self-esteem, love and attention from people or lack of activities to do. This mental state becomes a harmful act that lead to suffering of one’s health.
Dependence on such vices shows a person’s week self thinking that those vices gives them happiness. Their mental state is manifested in their bodies. And after smoking for the day, they’d go back to their own self. To avoid such problem, awareness to one’s self, strengths and weaknesses should be introduced because long time happiness always come and start from within.
Indulging in such lifestyle gives a short time satisfaction but give long time effect on health. If you are like this, rethink and reevaluate your life now. Maybe it’s time to cut those wicked habits and start living with a healthier mind and body for a healthier long lasting life.
Your lifestyle tells you how healthy you can become. That includes the basics which is eating right, exercising, keeping out bad habit and vices and etc. According to a study, millions of adults practice an unhealthy lifestyle which becomes detrimental in living longer. If we continue living our life this way, we have bigger chances to illnesses and not live a healthier life.
Expert says that even a small changes and alteration to your daily actions can make a big difference to living a healthy life. Everyone must be so lazy to make bigger chance that they won’t even try improving. But following these less than 10 minutes addition to your daily activity would definitely make a big difference. Now, you won’t even have an excuse why you can’t even apply these:
Make 15 sit-ups and curl-ups a day.
An apple a day keeps the doctor a way. That is true. And therefore, eating apple a day is always recommended.
People used to abuse themselves by practicing a lifestyle in a non-healthy way. Because of this, they cannot enjoy life to the fullest because of unexpected diseases and health risks affecting their health. Thus, deteriorate the body to function well. To avoid this, learn these easy steps to live life in a healthy way.
Eat healthy. Eat healthy foods that are available on the three food groups. Do be afraid to try different foods and add varieties to it, especially with fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Limit foods that are high in calories, sugar, salt and fat. It is also best to limit your consume of alcohol. Thus, eating healthy means maintain a balanced diet for a healthy weight and body.
Always seek regular check-ups. Ask your doctor or any health care provider about your health condition. Doing so will warn you for any early possible signs of risks so you can make the necessary treatments. Find out exams, test and shots that you need. By seeking professional advice, you can also ask if you’re lifestyle won’t affect and increases health risks, and if family medical history is affecting you.
Learn to manage your stress. Don’t be preoccupied with work, work and lots of work. Learn to balance your life between work, home and play so you can lower your stress level. Manage it and try to relax once in a while. It also pays if give yourself a reward such as getting enough sleep and time for relaxation.
Live life to the fullest. Everyone should live by to that proverb. A life spent well means a life filled with joy, compassion and experience. One of life’s principles is to live life healthy so the feeling of well-being is realized. For a healthy well being, one should have a positive attitude towards life. And here we listed you ways to live life in healthy way:
Master the art of letting go. Leave all of your past grievances and don’t carry any emotional baggage in the future. Learn to move on from heartaches, sadness, disappointments and such so you can proceed to the future.
Never again put your life on hold, because it won’t really wait for you. Start uncovering events in your life where you’ve been avoiding or denying.
Learn from criticism but don’t let it get into your head. Criticisms are often meant to give you realization which – if taken well, might help you improve as a better person.
Be optimistic. Practice viewing things on its positive side. Believe that everything in life will eventually turn out fine.
Challenge your fears. All of us have fears, and the only way to overcoming it is to face it rather than avoiding. Recognize your fears, address it and overcome it.
Stop criticizing and judging others.
Continue learning. You’d be a fool if you think you know everything in life.
Love others as much as you love yourself. Be grateful for having them surrounded in your life.
Love yourself. Before you’ll be able to love others, you have to accept and love yourself. Treasure your life, accept your imperfections and love yourself just the way you are.
Lastly. Fall in love. There’s no best feeling in this world but to love and be loved in return.
It takes 43 muscles to frown but only 17 muscles to smile. The mentioned aphorism has become part of our life to consider smiling than being sad. A sense of humor is an intellectual perspective and can be used for our everyday survival, which is the idea of the phrase. Humor comes first before a smile and smile is the beginning of a laugh. The sound of a laugh is so contagious that it affects one person to another. Smiling, humor, and laughing if applied together bind people together and increases happiness and intimacy.
Laughter is a great way to relieve stress and pain, ergo for a healthier mind and body. You want to stay emotionally healthy? Laugh like no one is watching you. The feeling of laughter is so good that despite your sadness and pain, repels it and gives you new light, strength and courage.
When you frown, think about and ask yourself these questions: was it really worth getting upset to? Is it really that important? Is being sad will solve your problem? Is the problem has no solution? If all the answers for the question is “no,” then what is worth having a frown in your face when you can smile? So smile to contribute to a healthier you. Remember, laughter is still the best medicine. For the best experience? Laugh together with the people you want to laugh with.
Generally, when we say vices it always means a wicked conduct or habit that should be avoided. It is always attached to smoking, gambling or drugs. These vices are known to be an unhealthy lifestyle habits. But believe it or not, there are guilty pleasures and vices we can enjoy that won’t contribute to an unhealthy you. These we call are healthiest pleasures and vices you can definitely enjoy.
Wine
Wines are known to be generally having heart-healthy properties. Considering coming from grapes, wines are rich in antioxidant. But moderation should always be observed, and a glass of 5-ounce a day should do.
Sun
Getting enough sunlight in every morning triggers the synthesis of vitamin D in the body; which by the way, a hormone that reduces the risk for heart disease and cancer. Too much sun may burn your skin, so it is also recommended to always wear a sunscreen no matter what amount of sunlight you are getting.
Massages
Never feel guilty for going to the spa every pay day. In fact, that is not even enough. Research shows that people who receive massages twice a week was noted to have less pain, anxieties and depression.
Sleep
Experts would unanimously agree that sleeping time is an important treat to oneself one should not skimp on. Sleeping gives back the energy lost in our body during the day, boost our immune system and memory. Cut it short, and then you will be having a hard time getting through stress and anxiety. The ideal sleeping hours are seven to eight hours of sleep at night.
