If you want to protect your immune system and put an extra pep in your step, you’ll love these 8 basic tips to improve your health!
Successfully improving your overall health doesn’t always require following big steps. In fact, there are so many simple things that you can do to improve your general health and quality of life.
If you’re new to my site, hi there! I’m a bestselling wellness author – who literally wrote the book on how to live healthier.
My bestseller Life is Long shares a range of cutting edge research on improving immunity and boosting longevity and clarity of mind. In this particular article, I’m going to share my top recommended simple and basic tips to start improving your health.
8 Basic Tips to Improve Your Health
These basic health steps can be easily incorporated into your daily lifestyle, which means you have a higher chance of maintaining your health in the long run. Thus, even if you only have a couple of minutes to spare each day, here are some ways you can enhance your well-being!
1. De-Stress
Health experts suggest meditating, exercising, and breathing techniques to relieve stress. Here’s a super fun breathing technique you can do with a pinwheel! However, you can also reduce stress by doing things that you love – such as reading a book, crocheting, playing with your pet, taking a relaxing bath, or going swimming. In fact, there are many health benefits of swimming laps, as well as doing other forms of exercise.
Doing something you love, even for only 10 minutes each day, can go a long way towards battling stressors in daily life. It should make you feel refreshed, calmer, and more energized. If you can’t take a break from what you’re doing, try taking slow and deep breaths for a few minutes.
De-stressing is crucial as stress has been known to aggravate various health problems such as migraines, hypertension, ulcer, and depression.
If you need some extra support to develop the super power of calm, I offer a range of stress management tools here.
2. Minimize Salt Intake
Excess salt intake has been linked to hypertension, one of the deadliest diseases around the world. Avoid placing a saltshaker on your dining table as it tempts you to use more salt than needed. Taste your food first before reaching for the salt. You can also try using other spices to add flavor to your food such as garlic, pepper flakes, lemon juice, or herbs.
3. Get Quality Sleep Each Night
Many adults don’t get the necessary seven hours of sleep per day. If you’re consistently getting less sleep than your body requires, you’re increasing the risk of having a stroke or a heart attack—regardless of your exercise habits, weight, or age. Establish a regular sleeping schedule daily, even during weekends, and stick to it. Check out these sleeping tips for the whole family.
4. Enjoy a Glass of Red Wine
Red wine is found to contain powerful antioxidants, which can help protect against colon cancer, heart diseases, depression, and anxiety. And unless you have a medical reason not to do so, enjoy a glass of wine with your dinner. However, remember to drink in moderation as too much alcohol can cause various health problems such as kidney and liver diseases.
Healthy men can have two drinks a day, but women should restrict their intake to one glass. This is because studies have found that women are more prone to have a higher chance of liver problems from consuming alcohol.
5. Eat Healthy
It’s not a secret that dark green leafy vegetables are great for your health. Aside from having important vitamins, they can also add more fiber and water into your diet, which can help make you feel full easily without consuming too many calories.
Try adding more non-starchy vegetables into your diet such as broccoli, carrots, spinach, bell peppers, and peas.
To improve your food choices, try the following easy food substitutions:
- Whole-grain foods for white bread, pasta, or crackers
- Skinless turkey and chicken for skin-on recipes
- Water instead of sugary drinks
- Almonds, fruits, or carrot sticks for chips or candy
6. Take the Stairs
Instead of taking the elevator, use the stairs when going up buildings. This will get your heart pumping, exercise your lungs, and work your muscles in the lower body. If you’re not climbing the stairs, try walking when doing errands. Ensure that you take 10,000 steps each day to get your body moving.
7. Be Mindful of Your Posture
When you’re working at your desk, take a few moments to check your posture. Ensure that your back is straight, stomach tucked in, and feet flat on the floor. This can help you prevent back pain, which is a common health problem nowadays.
If you work using a computer, ensure that you have good ergonomics at your workstation. This will help prevent neck and back strain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and eye strain.
8. Check Your Weight
Keeping a healthy weight can help minimize the risk of stroke, heart disease, and some cancer types.
For women, keeping your weight in check will reduce the risk of pelvic floor disorders, which are common for women who have vaginally-delivered babies. However, women who’ve never experienced giving birth vaginally are more at risk of experiencing urinary stress incontinence if obese or overweight.
If you need support to stop overeating, I offer emotional eating tools here.
Final Thoughts On Health
There’s no reason why you should delay following these small steps to improve your health. Incorporating these basic steps into your daily life can lead to healthy habits that can help minimize your risk of diseases. Regardless of your age, these tips can be beneficial for improving your general well-being.
Become the healthiest version of you
P.S. Before you wander off to whatever’s next, here are 2 things that will help you get more out of this wild ride called life:
1. Explore My Book: "Your To Die For Life: How to Maximize Joy and Minimize Regret Before Your Time Runs Out." It's just the tool you need to pry more joy, love, meaning and fulfillment out of your life. Curious? Learn more and snag a copy here.
2. Life Review Therapy - This is a coaching session where we get real about where you are, where you want to be, and why you haven’t gotten there yet. We’ll dig deep into what’s working, what’s holding you back, and how to create more joy, love and fulfillment moving forward. If you’re ready for actionable steps and real results, book a free consult call here.
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