As the New Year swiftly approaches, many people are taking a look at their lifestyle, eating and exercise habits, and vowing to make a change. A large percentage of New Year’s resolutions are to eat better (or diet) and to exercise more. But in truth, a healthier life has to be maintained year round and shouldn’t be based on the latest health fad or diet trend. You want to make taking care of yourself a priority — you owe yourself and your body that much! It’s been shown that if you consistently don’t take care of yourself as a young or middle aged person, it can have repercussions that you don’t want to face later, like heart or digestive diseases, high cholesterol, and even bad migraines.
How Do I Start Making A Change?
One of the best ways to stay healthy is to feed your body with the fuel it needs to boost your immune system. This means lots of fruits and vegetables, protein, and lower amounts of fatty meats, oils, and just carbs. Having good diet practices doesn’t mean you can’t eat those things ever again, but you should do it with moderation. Very stringent diets can often be harmful for your body, especially if you stop them abruptly.
Getting enough sleep is also an important factor! Getting 7-9 hours a night can help improve your immune system, make you less anxious, and help you feel more mentally and physically prepared for your day. Your body goes to work repairing everything that’s worn out or damaged during the day, so if you don’t get enough sleep, your body doesn’t get to do that repair in the most effective way possible.
Try and work some exercise into your day as well, even if that means taking the stairs instead of the elevator, or going for a walk at lunchtime. Staying active can help mentally as well as physically.
How Do These Help Me?
Living a healthier life can help alleviate symptoms of stress or other fatigue. For example, trying to get some sleep even with a migraine or changing your diet can help the 54% of people who suffer from migraines and get them once or more a month. Certain foods that heavy in omega-3 fatty acids can alleviate symptoms of migraines, which alarmingly is not diagnosed and not treated properly in at least half of patients who suffer from them. Sometimes holistic migraine treatment and natural ways to cure a headache, like increased exercise and eating fewer processed foods can help those symptoms can really do the trick without spending more money at the doctor’s office and pharmacy.
In addition, maintaining a healthy and active lifestyle can affect how you feel mentally. Although it won’t cure depression, staying active can help lessen symptoms — important also for migraine patients, for whom depression is three times more likely to appear.
If you take active steps to improve your lifestyle and make a healthier life, you’re sure to see positive results — you just have to stick with it and really commit. Like any good thing, it takes hard work and perseverance.
