Everyone is eager to have a healthy body, so they collect some evidence-based health information. Here are 10 evidence-based healthy lifestyle tips that may help you maintain your overall health and lead a happy and productive life.
10 Evidence-Based Health Tips for Maintaining a Healthy Lifestyle
In this article, we will tell you the top 10 health tips that may help you maintain a healthy lifestyle and lead a happy and productive life.
What is a Healthy Lifestyle?
A healthy lifestyle is defined as the life that a person lives based on daily habits that help him feel energetic, healthy, and less stressed and anxious, and it also reduces the risk of disease.
The so-called “lifestyle” is simply how to live. It refers to the sum of a series of life consciousness, living habits, and life systems formed by people’s long-term influence of a certain national culture, economy, social habits, norms, and family.
There may not be a specific definition of healthy living, so what some people consider healthy may not be considered healthy by others. But there are certain and comprehensive standards that everyone agrees on, such as food, avoiding harmful habits, and so on.
A healthy life depends first on oneself. 60% of an individual’s health and life span depends on oneself, 15% on heredity, 10% on social factors, 8% on medical conditions, and 7% on climate influences. Among the factors that depend on the individual, lifestyle is the main factor.
A good lifestyle can promote the health of the human body, and vice versa, it will endanger the health of the human body.
We must realize that most of the health-related problems and premature deaths in the world can be prevented by changing people’s behavior, and the cost is very small.
A healthy lifestyle that we should promote, which is to do: reasonable diet, regular daily life, ensuring sleep, combining work and rest, quitting smoking and limiting alcohol, a moderate amount of exercise, and mental balance.
How to Maintain a Healthy Lifestyle
10 Evidence-Based Health Tips to Lead a Healthy Lifestyle
A healthy lifestyle allows you to feel good and naturally maintains a high energy level. Start changing your diet or associated habits so that you can incorporate more positive choices into your lifestyle to improve your health.
Remember! maintaining a healthy lifestyle is different from participating in a temporary diet or exercise program. In fact, it is possible to achieve a healthy lifestyle by evaluating various aspects of your life and making changes wherever necessary.
If you want to be a well-rounded, healthy individual, here are the top 10 healthy lifestyle tips that may help you maintain your overall health and lead a happy and productive life.
1. Eat Healthy Foods Everyday
A healthy diet is an integral part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Fresh fruits, vegetables, lean meats, nuts, and whole grains are foods that can help you get the vitamins and nutrients you need. So, avoid greasy foods that contain sodium and high fats.
Swedish researchers conducted a 13-year follow-up study of more than 70,000 Swedes and found that compared with those who ate 5 servings of vegetables and fruits a day, the life expectancy of those who did not eat vegetables and fruits every day was reduced by an average of 3 years.
Nuts have a lot of unsaturated fatty acids, high-quality plant protein, and minerals, which are good for human health.
20 grams (equivalent to a handful of nuts) of nuts per day can reduce the risk of coronary heart disease by nearly 30%, 15% of cancer risk, and 22% risk of premature death.
It is recommended to eat a little bit every day, but don’t eat too much, don’t exceed 50 grams, eat a few walnuts, eat a few peanuts, and have as many types as possible. It is best to use nuts as part of your breakfast.
Cereals are an important source of B vitamins in the diet, and they are also rich in dietary fiber.
Animal foods are preferably fish and poultry, which have relatively low-fat content, and fish contain more unsaturated fatty acids.
Milk is known as “white blood” and its importance to the human body can be imagined. Its nutrition is almost all aspects, calcium, fat, protein, etc. are relatively rich. Milk is closely related to our bone health and is the preferred food for calcium supplementation.
2. Drink Enough Water and Stay Hydrated
Water is the source of life for all living things. As the body is made of water and water accounts for about 75% of our body weight, so our body always needs to fill the deficiency of it.
Drinking enough water is very beneficial to the efficient operation of the brain, reducing the formation of stones, and ensuring the health of the urinary tract.
Water also helps flush out toxins from your body, so you can actually feel healthier.
In order to lead a healthy lifestyle, you must make sure that you are drinking enough water throughout the day to stay hydrated.
3. Get Enough Good Sleep
Sleep is a necessary part of living a healthy lifestyle. One-third of a person’s life is spent in sleep. Your body depends on sleep to rest, gain strength and be ready to take on more tasks of the day.
Sleep is the main way to eliminate fatigue. If there is a severe lack of sleep, it will not only be a problem of fatigue but may also cause illness.
Those who fall asleep before midnight has a clear brain and a ruddy complexion the next day.
During sleep, the autonomic nervous system can concentrate on digestion and absorption, conversion and storage of nutrients and energy.
Certain endocrine functions become more active during deep sleep, such as the increased release of growth hormone and pineal gland, and the immune system can also be strengthened during deep sleep.
There are so many people who have an excessively busy life that they lose at least two hours of bedtime either in the evening or in the morning as a result of this. A night of insufficient sleep can cause you and your immune system to become overwhelmed.
Sleep can not only rest the body and restore physical strength but also rest the brain and restore mental strength. Scientists believe that if you want to be healthy, you must re-evaluate the effect of sleep on health.
4. Exercise Regularly and Be Physically Active
Exercising is one of the most prominent practices in maintaining a healthy lifestyle, as it improves both the health of the body and the mind, as well as gives the body harmony and keeps it fit.
Regular physical activity is important for the healthy development of children and adolescents.
Regular exercise keeps your body and heart in proper healthy shape. You can prevent or reverse health problems (such as lowering your blood pressure) by incorporating a regular exercise program into your daily schedule.
The international medical journal “The Lancet” published a tracking and analysis of the health data of 416,000 people over an average of 8 years. It was found that exercising for a quarter of an hour a day can save an average of three years. If a person can’t take out even 15 minutes a day, he is extremely irresponsible to himself.
Exercise prevents you from lethargy and laziness, which is one of the biggest causes that discourage people and prevent them from practicing their tasks. The causes of laziness and lethargy are many, and the best tips to prevent them is to enjoy physical activity.
For people who sit for a long time and do not move, blood circulation will slow down, blood viscosity will increase, blood circulation will be blocked, naturally, various diseases are also prone to appear.
Get up and exercise for 5-10 minutes every hour of sitting for an hour. No matter how busy you are at work and no matter how fun the game is, you won’t even give way to your health for five minutes.
According to “Duke Today,” adults should get at least 30 minutes of exercise per day to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Many people exercise at home, using a number of simple but very effective exercises, in addition to simple home use equipment. Riding a bicycle on the way to work, going out after dinner, fast walking, jogging… There are too many exercise methods, it just depends on whether you do it or not.
5. Give Your Body Enough Time to Rest
Rest is an important part of a healthy lifestyle for all ages. Everyone needs breaks throughout the day to take a break.
Rest and relaxation are associated with learning and memory function. Rest rejuvenates your body and mind, it regulates your mood, reduces stress and tension, and improves your overall health.
On the other hand, not getting enough rest can negatively affect your memory, immune system, mood, and stress level.
Setting aside time for rest and relaxation can recharge your ability to handle relationships, obligations, and the impact on your overall health.
So you must make sure that you are not neglecting yourself and depriving yourself of valuable time away from the grinder of work, as this break can help to regroup and energize yourself.
6. Maintain Your Mental Health and Wellbeing
A healthy lifestyle is not limited to the body only, but mental health is of high importance as it may sometimes cause body diseases.
Maintaining good mental health can help you maintain an overall healthy lifestyle, and it can also help you avoid the physical pain that results from things like nervousness.
Therefore, many people are keen to spend their time regularly doing whatever they love or pursuing their hobbies.
So you should learn how to deal with your stress and reduce it through yoga, meditation, relaxation exercises, or just reading an interesting book.
Set realistic goals, keep active, eat well, and relax and enjoy your hobbies.
Avoid illicit drug use and quit smoking and alcohol consumption.
Develop new skills and challenge your strengths and capabilities.
Spend time with family, friends, loved ones, and people you trust and talk about or express your feelings regularly.
7. Find Ways to Manage Your Emotions
Emotional health is an important part of overall human health. Emotionally healthy people are able to handle life’s challenges, they’re in control of their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and have good relationships.
Have you ever stopped to think about how you react when you feel bad? The truth is, sometimes we just don’t know how to effectively manage our negative emotions.
Emotional regulation includes a whole series of processes; we exert influence on our emotions using some processes. They help us control and express how we feel about them.
In other words, we are talking about how to modify our emotions. This can be adaptive (beneficial and functional) or maladaptive (dysfunctional). But how do we know which are helping us and which are not helping us?
Before we answer that, let’s take a look at the different ways in which we practice emotional regulation.
On the one hand, we can try to manage negative emotions using active strategies. Some examples are a positive reassessment of the situation, planning what we need to do, pursuing personal development, trying to solve the problem, and expressing what we feel.
On the other hand, we can also use more passive strategies. We can give in, get depressed, or leave things without trying to find a solution.
Finally, we have avoidance strategies. This is when we try to deny what happened, distance ourselves from it, or mentally separate ourselves.
We might even try temporary solutions that help our anxiety but not the cause (like eating or drinking to feel better).
Settle down and adjust your emotions. It’s more important for women to settle down, be emotionally stable, and make more friends because women are different from men.
8. Build Healthy and Positive Relationships
Having positive relationships and friendships in your life will keep you living a healthy lifestyle. Many people do not realize that negative relationships and friendships can be unhealthy.
The lack of social connections is associated with depression and cognitive decline later in life, as well as increased mortality.
The body may react through various symptoms such as stomach pain, headache, back pain, loss of appetite, or sleep deprivation.
Several studies have shown that people who receive social support from family, friends, and their community have fewer health problems, are happier, and live longer.
Therefore, you should try to fill your life with friendships and partners who fill your life with laughter, smiles, and happiness, to help you maintain a balance in your healthy lifestyle.
9. Reduce Your Screen Time
We keep spending more time in front of our phones and laptops. Studies do not agree on the exact number of hours we spend per day looking at our smartphone, but the good average for those studies is that we spend between 2 and 3 hours in front of our phones every day.
Even if phones provide us value through various apps and features, we must be careful about screen time.
Science has now proven that the blue light from screens is harmful to our eyes if we view them for too long.
If you work from home, or if you spend a lot of time in front of your computer, this can become a problem several years later.
Reducing screen time is a real challenge. Letting go of your smartphone might be a good solution to reduce screen time. However, I don’t recommend this drastic option. In fact, we get value from our smartphones, and it would be foolish to stop ourselves from using such a powerful tool.
It might be wise to reduce screen time if you want to focus more on your work. Some effective strategies to cut your screen time include:
Manage your phone screen time like a pro.
Set screen time limits and create screen-free bedrooms.
Explain to the children that it is important to sit less and move more in order to stay healthy.
Focus on family time during meals and talk to your family.
10. Take Vacation Time and Enjoy Outdoor Activities
Vacations and taking a day off from work at the weekend are very important to your physical and mental health.
Vacation enables you to maintain performance, productivity, and creativity, and maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Taking a day off can help you mentally reset yourself and make it easier for you to have a clear mind once you get back to work.
People who take vacations have less risk of heart disease, less stress, a better outlook on life, and more motivation to achieve goals.
A number of studies have shown that spending time away from a job can have both physical and psychological health benefits.
Try to escape from your office, home, and gym to get some fresh air and sunshine.
Incorporate more outdoor activities into your daily schedule whenever you can, such as going out for a walk instead of using the home treadmill or taking your food to eat outside rather than indoors.
