The beginning of the new decade has brought new resolutions to improve lives, including a healthier lifestyle. Here are 15 simple ways to keep your body healthy in 2021.
A healthy body not only contributes to a more active, productive, and fulfilling life, it can also add luster to your life. When your body has a good immune system to fight health problems, it reduces the risk of eye diseases, arthritis, and chronic diseases such as cancer, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease. By following some guidelines, you can develop habits that can help you to keep your body healthy.
Fifteen healthy behaviors mentioned in this article will help improve your health and reduce the risk of various cancers, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and osteoporosis. In turn, good health can reduce the risk of certain diseases like heart disease, stroke, certain cancers, and injuries.
Therefore, control your health and encourage your family to do the same. In the beginning, choose one or two of the following actions to start.
Ways to keep your body healthy
- Eat healthy diet
- Regular exercise
- Maintain healthy weight
- Get enough sleep
- Avoid smoking
- Drink plenty of water
- Try reducing stress
- Limit alcohol consumption
- Practice safe sex
- Regular check-ups
- Listen to your body
- Maintain good social relationship
- Maintain good personal hygiene
- Consume less sugar and salt
- Minimize consumption of harmful fats
Eat healthy diet
Eat a combination of foods, such as fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and whole grains. Adults should eat at least five servings (400 grams) of fruits and vegetables every day.
You can improve your fruit and vegetable intake by always including vegetables in your diet;
- eat fresh fruits and vegetables as snacks
- eat a variety of fruits and vegetables, and
- eat them on time
By eating healthy, you will reduce the risk of malnutrition and non-communicable diseases (NCD) such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and cancer.
When you eat correctly, you will not only feel better but also provide your body with essential nutrients, proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals, and fiber to keep your body healthy.
A nutritious diet includes whole grains, fish, nuts, eggs, poultry, lean meat, low-fat or non-fat dairy products (such as yogurt and fortified milk), and unsaturated fats (such as olive oil and avocado).
Avoid processed and refined foods, which usually contain saturated fat and sugar. These foods have little nutritional value and can cause blood sugar levels to soar and drop rapidly, making you feel tired.
Regular exercise
Like a healthy diet, regular exercise is essential to maintaining good health and keep your body healthy. Regular physical exercises help in controlling weight, strengthen bones and muscles, improve mood and overall mental health, and extend life.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP), moderate exercise like brisk walking is safe for most people. Participate in at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercises every week.
If you have a health problem, please consult your doctor before starting any exercise program.
Tips for regular exercise
- Choose the activity you like. Many things count as exercises, such as walking, gardening, and dancing.
- Develop the habit of exercising by setting aside the same time every day. Try going to the gym during lunchtime or taking regular walks after dinner.
- Work out with someone to stay motivated.
Maintain healthy weight
Being overweight can also cause weight-related injuries. A common problem is arthritis of weight-bearing joints, such as the spine, hips, or knees. There are many ways you can try to help you lose weight, maintain a healthy weight, and keep your body healthy.
Weight control is usually easier said than done, but some simple tips will help. First of all, if you are overweight, be careful not to gain weight first. This alone can improve your health. Then, when you are ready, try to lose some extra weight to further improve your health and keep your body healthy.
Follow simple tips to maintain a healthy weight;
- Make physical activity and exercise a part of your life.
- Eat a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
- Choose smaller portions and eat more slowly.
Although there is no one-size-fits-all weight, BMI is a great tool to determine if you are at the perfect weight. A BMI between 18.5 and 22.9 is ideal.
You can consult a nutritionist or dietician to find out which foods are best for your body type. Avoid fashion and consult your doctor when in doubt.
Get enough sleep
Although everyone’s sleep time is different, getting enough quality sleep is not only vital to your daily performance but also plays a vital role in maintaining your health throughout your life.
Sleep is necessary for the healing and repair of the heart and blood vessels. It helps balance the body’s hormones and supports the growth and development of the body. Your immune system can protect your body from infections and other harmful substances.
It relies on adequate sleep to stay strong and function normally. Recognizing when your body needs sleep and respecting this need are important to maintaining good health and keep your body healthy. Try to sleep eight hours a day.
Relaxation and meditation techniques, a cup of hot milk, and a hot bath before bed can help you get a good night’s sleep. Skip meals before going to bed, darken the bedroom, and then enter a stress-free sleep.
Once you get rid of unnecessary digital distractions, tracking your sleep is a good idea. Perhaps writing down your thoughts in a diary can help your brain calm down before you are ready to fall asleep.
Make sure there is enough sunlight during the day. Sunlight helps your body produce melanin, which in turn helps you fall asleep at night. Even being exposed to the sun for 15 minutes a day can improve your sleep.
Avoid smoking
Smoking can cause non-communicable diseases such as lung disease, heart disease, and stroke. Tobacco will kill not only direct smokers but even non-smokers through second-hand contact.
Currently, there are approximately 15.9 million adults who smoke, but seven out of ten smokers are interested in or plan to quit smoking.
If you are currently a smoker, it is not too late to quit smoking. Once you do this, you will experience immediate, long-term health benefits, and you can keep your body healthy. If you don’t smoke, this is great! Don’t start smoking and fight for your right to breathe air without tobacco smoke.
Drink plenty of water
Keeping adequate water is not only essential to your physical health but also essential to your survival. Water is an essential nutrient, accounting for 60% to 70% of the body. Every cell in your body needs water to function properly and keep your body healthy.
Water can maintain body temperature, transport nutrients, and waste products through the body, help normalize blood pressure, and lubricate and protect the body’s joints and organs. You must replenish the water lost due to body functions such as perspiration and breathing every day to avoid dehydration.
Prepare a bottle of water to drink during the day. A good rule of thumb for estimating adequate daily water intake is to drink water, measured in ounces, which is half your total weight. For example, if you weigh 140 pounds, you drink 70 ounces a day.
Try reducing stress
Managing stress in a busy and active life plays an important role in maintaining good health. Although stress cannot be avoided, it can be controlled.
Stress is part of everyone’s life, but chronic or long-term stress can harm mental health. Learning healthy coping mechanisms, such as taking a break from a stressor or exercising, can help you deal with stress before it can cause more serious illness.
When stress is repeated, excessive, and not treated in time, your body will have physical health problems, such as high blood pressure, weakened immune system, and mental problems such as depression and inattention.
Strategies such as exercise, yoga, meditation, or participation in a stress-reduction plan are effective ways to manage stress and help maintain good health. Practicing meditation and controlling stress can help prevent age-related decline in brain health.
Limit alcohol consumption
The global average annual alcohol consumption over 15 years old (2016) is 6.4 liters per person.
Men should not drink more than two drinks a day. Women should not drink more than one drink a day. One drink is equivalent to 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of liquor.
Excessive drinking can damage the liver. It can cause certain types of cancer, such as the throat, liver, or pancreas. Alcoholism can also lead to car accidents, murders, and suicides.
To reduce the risk of alcohol-related injuries, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2020-2025 recommends that adults reaching the legal drinking age can choose not to drink or drink in moderation by limiting their daily intake to 2 cups or less. On drinking days, men or women drink 1 cup or less a day.
Practice safe sex
Use condoms every time you have sex to help prevent sexually transmitted infections (STI) and HIV/AIDS. Condoms are not 100% foolproof, so please discuss the STI test with your provider.
Contraception methods other than condoms, such as pills and implants, will not protect you from sexually transmitted infections or HIV.
Tips for safer sex
Safer sex also includes having sex when you and your partner are ready and having pleasant, respectful, and protected sex. Ways you can practice safer sex include:
- Having sex with only one partner, when neither partner has any sexually transmitted infections, is the safest way to have sex.
- Getting tested for common infections and getting treatment when needed, especially when you have a new partner, can avoid sexually transmitted infections. Avoid sexual contact until your doctor or nurse tells you that sexual contact is no longer contagious and both you and your partner have received treatment.
- Communicate with your sex partner what you want and enjoy sex.
- Please note that drugs and alcohol can affect your ability to make the right decisions. Protect yourself from sexual behaviors that may make you regret or stress because your thinking is incorrect.
- In addition to condoms, other types of contraception should also be used to prevent unwanted pregnancy.
Regular check-ups
Regular visits to the doctor for check-ups and health check-ups help to detect health problems early. When treatment possibilities are better, health professionals will identify serious illnesses.
The CDC recommends that people start a campaign in their community. Whether in a school, a civic group, or a religious institution, you can change your life. Encourage those around you to make an appointment with your healthcare provider immediately. Join the millions of people all over the world who have invested in improving their health. The journey to a healthy country begins with you.
Taking care of our bodies and encouraging people around us to unite together will make us a fertile land. Get all the information you need for a healthy life today and challenge yourself to keep your body healthy.
Listen to your body
Don’t ignore warning signs and pain. Your body speaks to you through physical, mental, or emotional signals and signs. Listening to your body means you can recognize when you feel uncomfortable and take steps to improve it. A lot of the soreness in our body comes from muscle imbalance.
Make sure to stretch your body evenly, straight to straight, left, front, and back (for example, quadriceps and hamstrings). Even if you only have pain on one side, you should always stretch both sides. Correct posture and good posture help relieve tension and increase overall mobility while minimizing injury.
Before reaching the point of discomfort, go as deep as you can with each stretch. Stretching should create tension during the stretching process and then relax.
Stretching may not be the best answer in all situations. When it comes to painful injuries or joints and muscles, consult your doctor or physical therapist before performing a new stretching exercise.
Maintain good social relationship
Another unique but very effective way to achieve and keep your body healthy is to invest in relationships. Yes, loving someone and accepting love can help you stay healthy. Strong interpersonal relationships and social interaction are just as helpful for mental health as exercise.
In addition to endorphins, spending time with loved ones may increase the level of chemicals such as adrenaline and oxytocin in the brain. These biochemical substances help improve mood and overall health, so please call friends, spend time with your family, and meet new people. It will help to keep your body healthy.
Maintain good personal hygiene
A clean body is a healthy body. Personal hygiene can help to eliminate opportunistic pathogens found in the skin, hair, and even the mouth.
Good personal hygiene includes keeping all external parts of the body clean and healthy. Maintaining physical and mental health is very important. For people with poor personal hygiene, the body provides an ideal growth environment for bacteria, making them susceptible to infection.
This can prevent urinary tract infections, dermatitis, tooth decay, and other infections, so brush your teeth twice a day, take a shower at least once a day, and avoid wearing dirty clothes. These seemingly simple things, but they will have a great impact on your health.
Consume less sugar and salt
Consuming more than the recommended sodium intake will put them at risk of high blood pressure, which in turn increases the risk of heart disease and stroke.
Most people get sodium from salt. Reduce your salt intake to 5 grams per day, which is roughly equivalent to one teaspoon. When preparing meals, it is easier to do this by limiting the amount of salt, soy sauce, fish sauce, and other high-sodium seasonings.
On the other hand, excessive intake of sugar can increase the risk of tooth decay and unhealthy weight gain. In adults and children, the intake of free sugars should be reduced to less than 10% of the total energy intake.
This is equivalent to 50 grams or about 12 teaspoons for an adult. WHO recommends consuming less than 5% of total energy intake for additional health benefits. You can reduce sugar intake by restricting sugary snacks, candies, and sugary drinks.
Minimize consumption of harmful fats
The fat consumed should be less than 30% of the total energy intake. This will help prevent unhealthy weight gain and non-communicable diseases. There are different types of fats, but unsaturated fats are more popular than saturated fats and trans fats.
The WHO recommends reducing saturated fat to less than 10% of total energy intake; reducing trans fat to less than 1% of total energy intake, and replacing saturated fat and trans fat with unsaturated fat.
Preferred unsaturated fats are found in fish, avocados, and walnuts, as well as in sunflower, soybean, rapeseed oil, and olive oil. Saturated fats are found in fatty meat, butter, palm and coconut oil, cream, cheese, ghee, and pig. Trans fats are found in baked and fried foods, snacks, and pre-packaged foods, such as frozen pizza, biscuits, biscuits, and cooking and spreads.
My Final Words
The best way to benefit from these techniques is to incorporate them into your daily schedule.
In addition to the practical tips listed above, you also need to spend time on the health of your entire body. Go to the doctor for regular check-ups. This includes your general practitioner, as well as your dentist and ophthalmologist. Let your health benefits and preventive health services work for you.
Make sure you know what your health insurance plan covers. Preventive care can detect or prevent diseases before they start.
