How to Maintain a Healthy Lifestyle
Being successful in life is indefinitely important, but so is your mental and physical health. That’s why I’m here to talk about how to keep a healthy lifestyle by balancing everything going on in your life.
Many people confuse the term ‘healthy lifestyle’ with ‘healthy eating’. Those are two very separate terms. Healthy lifestyle indicates someone who is doing well all around (socially, financially, familial relationships...etc.), whereas healthy eating simply promotes things like protein shakes, diets, and keto food.
Let’s get started!
First, I recommend that everyone takes some time out of their day just to de-stress and relax. Anyone should do this, regardless of if you’re living a healthy lifestyle or not. Whether you choose to meditate, practice yoga, or even just taking a nap, they all help your brain to release excess stress that’s been lingering in your body throughout the day.
Another really helpful tip is to eat breakfast. I know many people (mostly high-school or university students) are accustomed to just skip breakfast as a meal entirely, especially when their school starts fairly early in the morning. I personally used to find breakfast ‘useless’, or ‘a burden’, but throughout my sixteen years of living on this planet, I’ve come to learn that breakfast is actually probably the most important meal of the day. Not only does breakfast replenish your energy, it can also help to control your weight. This is because eating a regular breakfast helps to control large fluctuations in your blood sugar, resulting in your glucose levels to stay constant and, finally, keeps you from growing obese.
Speaking of eating, my next no-brainer tip is to limit your junk food consumption. A LOT of children, including me, are, quote-on-quote, addicted to junk food. However, ever since I quite literally experienced a near-death experience a few years back, I’ve cut my junk food consumption by 85%. No, seriously. While I used to eat plenty of chips, candy, and fries, now I can confidently announce that I no longer consume chips, pop/soda, and candy. Well, maybe I lied a bit there; I still eat chocolate. But any other candy goes straight to my parents or my siblings. I certainly don’t approve of myself just throwing all my junk food at my brother, but hey, you can’t blame yourself when they CHOOSE to eat it, right?
Next up, we have to get enough sleep. I know how difficult this might be, considering the mountains of homework teachers assign sometimes. But we need to try our hardest, especially since the time you spend sleeping is the only time some of your muscles get to relax. Studies have shown that sleeping significantly improves your day-to-day alertness and proves to positively affect your reaction response time in the day. Scientists say that for most children aged six to twelve, they should get a minimum of 9 hours of sleep, whereas adolescents (ages 13-18) should get a recommended 8+ hours. While your work may take up a remarkable chunk of time off your schedule, it’s also tremendously important to get your recommended sleep time somewhere in that schedule, along with your work.
This last tip is possibly one of the most disliked parts of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Exercise. Exercising doesn’t always mean doing something extreme, like completing 50 pushups in the span of 30 minutes, or running ten times around the block. The word ‘exercising’ simply suggests that you take a daily whiff of fresh air while also stretching out some cramped muscles. This can include activities such as watering your garden and/or walking your pet. Of course, this type of exercise only benefits your body by relieving your muscles’ strain of sitting all day, but if your intention is to lose excess body fat, I strongly recommend taking further measures of exercise.
And that’s a wrap! Hopefully these tips taught you something new on improving the way you live, and I hope you found it to be helpful!
