A healthy lifestyle helps you gain or maintain good physical and mental health. It involves numerous small, daily choices about how you spend your time, what you eat or drink, and how much you move your body.
What are the benefits of living a healthy lifestyle?
A healthy lifestyle has many benefits. In the short term, it helps you feel good. In the long term, it helps you stay well for longer.
In contrast, an unhealthy lifestyle has negative effects on your health, making it more likely that you’ll develop a serious medical condition that may have been preventable.
5 lifestyle choices with a big impact on your health
How healthy is your lifestyle right now? detikindonesia Which of these habits are you guilty of and what can you do to live better?
1. Inactivity
Nowadays, it takes deliberate effort to be active enough each day. Australia’s physical activity guidelines recommend that adults should be active on most days (and preferably everyday).
By the end of a week, you should have clocked up 2.5-5 hours of moderate-intensity activity such as a brisk walk, golf game, swimming or mowing the lawn. Alternatively, you could do 1.5-2.5 hours of vigorous activity like jogging, aerobics, fast cycling, soccer or netball.
2. An unbalanced diet
There’s truth to the old saying that ‘you are what you eat’. Each time you eat, you’re influencing your health for good or ill. And while there’s no harm in enjoying treats in moderation, it’s very easy for unhealthy choices to creep into your regular diet.
A healthy diet is high in fresh fruits and vegetables, lean meats and wholegrains. Watch your portion sizes too. The second and third helpings will always involve more calories than you need.
Try keeping a food diary for a few days to notice what you eat. And why you eat. If you notice that you’re eating because you’re stressed or bored, then try to distract yourself with something else until the urge passes.
3. Too much alcohol
Alcohol is legal but it is a powerful and often dangerous drug too. In the short term, being under the influence of alcohol impairs your judgement and increases the risk of injury.
Long-term heavy drinking increases the risk of many conditions including mental health difficulties, many types of cancer, obesity, diabetes, infertility, heart attack, stroke, dementia and liver failure.
If you enjoy a tipple (or two), then pay attention to how much alcohol you’re having. It’s very easy for alcohol to creep into more of your life than you intended until you’re having a drink whenever you need to relax, cheer up or celebrate.
4. Still smoking
The damaging effects of smoking are now very well known. Quitting isn’t easy but it is definitely worth it – your health starts to improve almost immediately.
Many people do take several attempts before they give up for good. If you’ve tried before then try again, using everything you’ve learnt your triggers to help you overcome them.
Again, please talk to your GP. We’ve helped many people to break the smoking habit and would love to support you too.
5. Sitting down for too long
They say sitting is the new smoking. Too much overall sitting and prolonged periods of sitting are implicated in a growing list of health conditions including obesity, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease and cancer.
So, try to stand up more. Use a standing desk for part of the day, stand up and move at least every half hour, stand up to take phone calls, stand on your train journey, go for walking meetings not sitting ones – every little helps!
