Healthy Lifestyle

Essay Example 4: What is a Healthy Lifestyle Public awareness of personal health and fitness has grown tremendously over the last few decades. In generations past the idea of eating right and being physically fit was a luxury reserved for a privileged few. This concept has matured to embrace the idea that we all need to regularly engage in pursuit of our own wellbeing. It seems that every week there is a new diet or fitness craze that emerges promising to provide the missing element to help you trim down and shape up. With all the choices available, it’s no wonder that the majority of individuals that try to improve their condition, eventually drift back into old habits and fall short of their goals, feeling discouraged and even more confused about how to effectively begin living a healthy lifestyle. Defining the elements that constitute a healthy lifestyle is often as challenging as living the model. Training for the body and conditioning for the mind serves to address the duality of our complex nature. To neglect one in favor of the other, only serves to make your approach one dimensional and reduces its effectiveness. Most fitness professionals agree that there are several key factors that are necessary for a well rounded training routine. Each component adds greater depth to your overall approach to wellness. Here are several things to consider while developing your approach to healthy living. A comprehensive model of healthy living should address physical and mental training, nutrition, and how to balance these with quality rest and recovery. Resistance training enhances your capacity to perform activities requiring physical strength. This coupled with cardio-conditioning increases your endurance, or the ability to work longer periods of time without overtaxing. Combing strength and endurance with systems of exercise that increase flexibility, or the range of motion in a joint, aid in allowing for a greater sense of confidence and coordination as you move. Choosing an activity, that challenges your body and equally engages your mind, will serve to increase your powers of concentration and helps you to become calmer. Working with a Personal Trainer or other qualified fitness professionals can help you to get started in a smart and safe manner. Maintaining a balanced and varied diet is essential for the promotion of health. Eating fresh foods with a minimum of processing is believed by many experts to provide a greater quality of nutrition. Altering your diet to take advantage of ‘what’s in season’ will give you a broader selection of foods to choose from as well. According to a prominent neuro-immunologist and one of the nation’s leading authorities on stress reduction, the clinical definition of aging is: “The bodies declining ability for recovery.” Hall further states that this decline is not necessarily linked to our chronology, but is likely the result of stress due to the unceasing demands that we place on ourselves. Sufficient rest when we feel tired or during times that are exceedingly stressful is essential. Adequate recovery from work or injuries and extra rest when we feel illness coming on is our best weapon to aid in the healing process. The best gauge of health and fitness is “how well you feel on a daily basis.” At the core of this level of wellness is a lifestyle built around balance and moderation. Take the time to take care of yourself. The results of your investment will prove to be well worth the effort.

A healthy lifestyle also includes practicing healthy habits such as exercising and avoiding harmful habits. It also comprises of having the right and positive attitude about life and living, loving your work or whatever you do and being in a healthy relationship.

The Benefits of Healthy Lifestyle and Healthy Living.

1. Doing regular cardiovascular exercises and workouts not only keep you fit but also help relieve stress and tension. It helps you fight fatigue, burns fat and loses weight and prevents clogged arteries. You can read more on the benefits of aerobic exercise by clicking on the link. 2. Eating healthy and consuming the right amount prevents the risk of heart attacks, stroke and other manifestations of cardiovascular disease. Poor and improper eating habits can cause illness and many other discomforts. Eating nutritious food provides you with the energy and improves your physical mental and emotional well being. And you will save on your health care costs. 3. Practicing physical and mental disciplines like yoga, meditation and breathing exercises reduces your stress level and helps you relax your mind and body. Yoga for example helps you calm your mind, tone your glands and improves flexibility. 4. There are altogether 599 additives in cigarettes and more than 4,000 chemical compounds are created by burning a cigarette. Avoiding bad habits like cigarette smoking lowers your risk of getting emphysema, lung cancer and many other health problems including affecting your fertility. 5. Maintaining proper sanitary practices and a hygienic way of life is part of living healthy. A clean living and working condition prevent diseases and helps your mind declutter. The habit of ensuring cleanliness and a hygienic lifestyle will save you from future health care costs. 6. Allocating time for rest and recreation is necessary to have a balanced and healthy lifestyle. There are many ways to relax and unwind from the stresses of life. Setting aside time to do things or with your spouse and children will improve your relationship.

Healthy Lifestyle Tips

1. Learn about nutrition and educate yourself about food and its supplements and the positive effects it does to your body and wellbeing. 2. Do regular cardiovascular exercise. Walking is the simplest. You can also choose to swim or jog. Do at least 3 times in a week for about 20 minutes. 3. Make healthy eating a habit. Include fresh vegetables and fruits into your diet. Avoid alcohol and other foods or drinks that have no nutritional benefits. Eat right and eat regularly. 4. Practice stress reduction techniques to reduce your stress level. Yoga, Pilates and routines that involve your body and mind are good choices. 5. Quit harmful habits such as smoking or taking drugs. Cut down on your caffeine. 6. Maintain the right attitude and create a high level of optimism.

How Can I Have a Healthy Practice and a Healthy Lifestyle? Everyone today has become more conscientious about living a healthy lifestyle. Scientific studies constantly remind us how important good diet, regular exercise and a good night's sleep are to our overall health and well being. So why do most of us have such a hard time implementing these three important practices? If you are like most lawyers you are busy with your practice. There is always just one more file to read, call to take or meeting to go to. A healthy practice is high on your list of priorities so to keep the practice profitable you skip meals, stay up late and/or forget to exercise. When given the choice of doing more work or taking self care time many lawyers choose work. Without you your practice won't exist however so the time spent caring for yourself is also time spent caring for your practice. While intellectually you understand how important healthy habits are, implementing them is a more difficult task. So how can you maintain a healthy practice and a healthy lifestyle? There are three simple steps. The first is that if you really want to do this you must make it a priority. Step one is to set your intention. I'd suggest focusing on one habit at a time.

Let's use exercise as an example. First you must set the intention of exercising a specific number of times each week. Your thoughts are important here. So if you are thinking "I should do this.", it won't work. You must first change the thinking and feeling to "I want to do this." That makes it a priority. The next step is to ask yourself why you want to exercise and then write down the benefits you expect to get. These can be used to remind yourself of your intension. It took me a few months of sticking with this routine to notice that I am stronger, my weight is stable and I have more energy. To maintain the benefits I know I must continue. Finally find a way to exercise that fits you and your life. The easiest way is to play a team sport you enjoy. You'll have fun and since the team will count on your being there, you be compelled to show up! I'm not much of an athlete so instead I workout three times a week. I block out time to workout on three different days on my calendar each week. Again the only way this will work is if you have truly committed to doing it and really want to form an exercise habit. It is an appointment I make with myself and I rarely change it. These steps can be used with any change of habit. As with anything you do the secret is what happens inside you. You must really want it. If it is important to you, you will find a way to make it happen.

Benefits of a Healthy Lifestyle Here are 8 benefits of healthy living. This Article is written to reach the public with a simple and clear method to point out and to reap the benefits of a healthy lifestyle while reducing the risks of chronic diseases such as diabetes. With the increased understanding of our bodies that we have gained from science over the past few decades, the benefits of a healthy lifestyle are becoming more apparent, along with the reasons why we should detoxify the body at least once a year to remove harmful bacteria, and even worms, from our digestive system. For people of all ages, weights, and abilities the benefits of a healthy lifestyle are endless. But for now let’s look at eight simple benefits of a healthy lifestyle. •

Your Health: Good Health is not something that you buy from a drug store or a department store, but can be achieved by practicing collective patterns of health-

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related behavior, based on choices made from available options. Following this logic, if you wish to realize the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, you have to repeat some healthy pattern as a part of your daily or weekly activities, some patterns like eating right and exercising. Other benefits includes: Reduced health care costs, reduced illness and injuries, reduced doctors visit, Keeps you employed and improved employee/employer relations. Weight: Managing your weight is the key to attaining all of the health benefits of a Healthy Lifestyle. A weight reduction of just 10 percent will significantly reduce risk of heart disease and other obesity-related illnesses. Obesity/overweight is the second leading contributing factor to many childhood diseases such as orthopedic disorders, sleep apnea, type II diabetes mellitus, asthma, high blood pressure and cholesterol, skin disorders, emotional and psychosocial problems (Spigel, 2002), and many more. Weight-bearing exercise such as walking and strength training helps slow the onset of and/or prevent osteoporosis and some research shows that participating in such activities can actually build bone density and begin to reverse the disease. Other benefits are: Weight reduction, reduced tension and stress, improved well-being, Enhanced self-image and self-esteem and improved physical function. Exercise: Although drugs alone can often bring cholesterol down to normal levels, diet and exercise provide benefits that drugs don't. They'll lower blood pressure, reduce weight, and lower the risk of developing diabetes. A sedentary lifestyle is a dangerous risk factor for disease. Exercise and a healthy diet helps the body use insulin more efficiently and can help control, alleviate and prevent many diseases. Exercise, cessation of tobacco consumption, eating a high-fiber, low-fat diet, controlling body weight, and learning to cope with stress, reduce the risk of heart disease. Medical: We all want a trim and have healthy body for a variety of aesthetic, social and medical reasons. Healthy living is truly the best medicine. In a study conducted by Tufts University at the New England Medical Center, among patients with cardiovascular disease, an exercise program was shown to significantly reduce LDL cholesterol and other risk factors beyond what’s provided by drug therapy. Even modest weight loss can help reduce medical and pharmacy costs, help avoid bariatric surgery, and co-morbidities such as asthma, hypertension, and diabetes. Wellness: Wellness is about being comfortable in your space: your body, your attitude, and your environment. Living healthy can greatly increase a person’s longevity. And even though catching something contagious like a cold or flu is sometimes unavoidable, having the wisdom that feeling healthy is a better way to live should have you asking yourself why you are not taking action to live each day as beneficially as possible. The issue with a lot of people nowadays is that they are so busy working and/or taking care of everyone around them, that they neglect their own health and wellness. Make sure your heart is healthy and your bones are strong and keep it that way to see the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. Care: The best way to ensure good health is by taking care of yourself. The Care stakes are high but the potential rewards are great—preventing premature death, unnecessary illness, and disability, controlling health care cost, and maintaining a

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high quality of life into old age. With a healthy lifestyle, you are who you are and you don't have to be self-conscious about those things that you otherwise would be if you didn't care about your lifestyle. Control: With a healthy lifestyle, you have more control of your life as you work with your body against those aspects of living which may work to hold you back if you would let them. With a healthy lifestyle, you have control over your sleep patterns so that you feel generally well rested throughout the day. With a healthy lifestyle, everything works together to help other aspects of your lifestyle make sense and benefit you. Science has proved that healthy weight loss, healthy eating and fitness routines make dramatic improvements in health, and help control common chronic illnesses like high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, stress, and general lack of stamina. Strength: Another benefit of a healthy lifestyle is a steady flow of stamina and strength; you can perform activities and exercises that will enhance your flexibility. With a healthy lifestyle, you have a balanced and varied diet that provides your body its needed nutrients and energy as well. You have strength to train to help build the muscle that supports the bones and joints; therefore decreasing the risk of falls and fractures. Cardiovascular exercise, also known as aerobic exercise, strengthens the heart muscle, therefore increases the heart’s efficiency. As we age, our bones biologically begin to lose mass and strength. Weight-bearing exercise such as walking and strength training helps slow the onset of and/or prevent osteoporosis and some research shows that participating in such activities can actually build bone density and begin to reverse the disease.

The good news is you don't have to train like an Olympic athlete to enjoy the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. The secret and logic are repeating a chosen healthy pattern as a part of your daily or weekly activities. We hope that this will get you to a healthy lifestyle if you are not there already. A healthy lifestyle is a way of life.

How to Follow a Healthy Lifestyle By Joel Le Blanc, eHow Contributor • • •

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Taking some simple steps can lead to a healthy lifestyle. If you are wondering how to take on more beneficial health habits in your day-to-day life, you may be surprised to discover that the important steps are really quite simple. A study by the Michigan State University, however, found that only 3 percent of the 150,000 individuals they studied were leading what researcher, Mathew Reeves, considered a healthy lifestyle. To turn this statistic around, researchers like Reeves recommend taking several small steps to make big changes. Difficulty: Easy

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Stress can be reduced by spending time with loved ones. Manage stress and promote balance in your lifestyle. High stress levels are linked with increased risk of cardiovascular disease, poor immune function, stroke, high blood pressure, diabetes, weight gain and psychological disorders. Talk to people you trust when you begin to feel stressed, whether this is a family member or a health care professional. Some stress-reducing activities include regular exercise, creative pursuits such as art or writing, gardening, spending time with loved ones and pets, and practicing yoga, tai chi, reiki or meditation. o

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Eating healthy foods improves our energy and mood. Eat a nutritious diet with a variety of food groups each day. According to an article in "Moving Towards Healthier Diets," written by Elizabeth Frazao, diets high in saturated fats, calories and salt are related to an increased risk of heart disease, cancer, stroke, hypertension and osteoporosis. Even small changes in the diet can yield dramatic results to your health. For example, reducing daily fat intake to recommended levels, and adding more vegetables, fruits and grains that are rich in vitamins and fiber will improve energy, digestion, physical performance and your sense of well being. o

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Regular exercise reduces the risk of chronic illness and stress. Perform thirty minutes of mild to moderate exercise each day. Take a walk at lunch time, bike to work, swim at the local pool, walk your dog, join a local gym or enroll in a yoga class. According to the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, regular exercise can help improve your mood, reduce the risk of chronic disease, increase energy levels and even improve sleep. Find a form of exercise that is stimulating as well as fun--on your own, with a loved one or as part of a team o

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Smoking puts our lungs, our heart and our health at risk. Reduce addictive and potentially toxic substances, such as nicotine, caffeine and alcohol. In addition to increasing your risk of various types of cancer, these substances also increase hypertension and oxidative stress in the body. According to author Henry Osiecki in his book "The Physician's Guide to Clinical Nutrition," ingesting toxic substances should be limited to an absolute minimum. If you are concerned with your intake of caffeine, alcohol or nicotine, speak with a health-care professional.

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References • • • • •

The Mayo Clinic: 7 Benefits of Regular Exercise Moving Towards Healthier Diets: The American Diet: A Costly Health Problem Michigan State University: Study Finds Very Few Adults Leading Healthy Lifestyles The Health Resource Network: Stress Facts "The Physicians Handbook of Clinical Nutrition"; Osiecki, Henry; 2006

Resources •

Dumb Little Man: 50 Ideas for a Healthy Lifestyle

Read more: How to Follow a Healthy Lifestyle | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_7359566_follow-healthy-lifestyle.html#ixzz1cKQQVS3Q