Today I heard a news snipit about a subject close to my heart – health.
Dr. David Angus was speaking about how to improve and take control of your health. The doctor’s comments and suggestions mirror what I have been saying most of my adult life.
There have been studies of thousands of people to confirm the benefits of incorporating five key habits to improve the quality of your life.
The first is “regularity”.
Don’t confuse regularity with obsessive compulsive. Understand our body functions best with a rhythm. Design a rhythm to your day. Get up at the same time, have a decent breakfast, lunch and dinner, and go to bed around the same time.
Of course life happens and you need to be flexible with your schedule. But for the most part we need to give our body the luxury of regularity. You will find your body will start to adapt to and thrive on a consistent rhythm.
Next the doctor recommends to “move”.
His explanation was to move ALL day. Society has fallen into a sedentary lifestyle. Even if we go to the gym (or exercise) once a day, we still need to move our body during the day.
Many employment positions today are in an office setting. So we exercise, but sit for the remainder of the day. Not good! We need to get up from our desk and walk or stand.
The doctor referred to a study done on 26,000 transportation workers, comparing the train engineers (who sat most of their day) and the platform workers (who moved most of their day). At the end of the study the engineers had a 60% higher mortality rate. Impressive reason to incorporate movement throughout your day.
One of the main reasons we need to move is to keep our lymphatic system active. A key responsibility of the lymph system is to keep our body from retaining fluids, which aids the immune system and works with the circulatory system to deliver nutrients, oxygen and hormones to our body. So you can see the importance to get up, move and stretch during your day.
The third habit to incorporate into your life is “eat real food”.
This doesn’t mean to stay away from restaurant food necessarily, but to make better choices. Choose foods that are closest to their natural state. Eat more vegetables, nuts, beans, and organic fed meats.
Our society has become accustomed to overcooked and processed vegetables – cooked to moosh. We need to get back to appreciating the flavor of “close to fresh” vegetables. These veggies will make our digestive system function the way it is designed to. We need the roughage in our gut to keep us regular.
I suggest, if at all possible, plan ahead. Take your lunch, which will give you time to plan the quality and also to control the portion (instead of eating your money’s worth at a restaurant). Yes, real food is a little pricier than fast food, but real food choices are well worth the cost.
The last two recommendations go hand in hand: monitor and take charge of your own body.
Get regular blood pressure readings to know how your body is functioning (throughout the day )– to know what your “normal” is.
Monitor your blood sugar levels. Our society is becoming borderline diabetic. Our astronomical sugar and fat consumption are devastating to our bodies.
Blood pressure and blood sugar are easy (you don’t need to go to the dr) ways to start monitoring your health. “Normal” blood pressure is 120/80, so know where you fall into this range. “Normal” blood sugar ranges should stay below 140 mg/dl.
If either blood sugar or pressure consistently rise above the normal guidelines, you need to take charge of examining why. It is your body, it is your sole responsibility to care for it.
In today’s world we have a wealth of available knowledge and information at our disposal. Web sites hosted by medical and holistic professionals have been created to educate those who seek knowledge – use them.
Don’t fall for the fads. Develop sound, realistic habits to keep your body functioning to the best of its ability for many years.
To your health!
KC Proofreads 