Some people are becoming almost allergic to the phrase “healthy lifestyle”, because it is repeated everywhere, all the time. In this article, however, you won’t find superficial advice like: Eat healthily and keep moving. If you really want to live healthily, you need to go much deeper. Diet and exercise are of course an important foundation, but we bring you a full 15 tips on how to start living healthily in every area of your life.
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Why and how to start living healthily?
The most common birthday wish we hear shows that people naturally want to be healthy: Happy birthday and, above all, good health! If we hear this wish from our loved ones every year and wish them the same, why don’t we act on it too? After all, our health is most influenced by our overall lifestyle, which we can easily change.
The kind of life we choose is entirely up to us. Daily habits, small things and decisions make up our overall quality of life. You may think that one small slip or a single habit won’t change anything in your life, but in the long run our body and mind will hold us fully to account. In 10 or perhaps 30 years, you will find out whether the decisions you make now were right or not.
That is why we keep hearing about a healthy lifestyle and how important it is. Countless studies and research have confirmed that how we will feel and look at the age of 70, for example, is shaped throughout our whole life. It is a very holistic view of the matter.
Do you feel it’s too late? Don’t be fooled. We never know how much time we have left, and we are shaping the quality of our future today. So how do you start living healthily, so that you can enjoy your whole life feeling good, happy and free of unpleasant complications and illness?
Tip: Take it step by step. Don’t try to change your whole lifestyle overnight, because you wouldn’t keep it up for long. Instead, introduce changes and new habits gradually, gently but sustainably. Improving in a given area by just a little each day is enough, and within a few months you will have made huge progress.
1/ Enough good-quality sleep
Good-quality sleep is one of the most important activities, and you really should devote a full 8 hours a day to it. The book Why We Sleep and the many studies it mentions will convince you of this brilliantly. Sleep has a direct impact on our health, in every respect. Sleep, both its quantity and quality, affects anything you can think of.
So, to name just a few, enough sleep has a positive effect on your:
- mood and stability
- fertility
- immunity
- muscle and whole-body recovery
- healing of wounds and injuries
- stress reduction
- memory and perception
And I could go on forever. Personally, I consider enough sleep even more important than diet or exercise, because we really can’t go without it for long.
You can improve the quality of your sleep easily and quickly, and you don’t need to buy anything special. Simply give yourself time to sleep, keeping it as regular as possible (yes, even at weekends). Your bedroom should be completely dark and cooler, and it also helps to limit blue light before bed or to have a warm bath about an hour before going to bed. On the other hand, avoid alcohol, coffee and other stimulating drinks, as well as sleeping pills.
2/ The right fuel for your body = food
I know I said in the introduction that you won’t find advice like “eat healthily and exercise” here. The point is rather that you won’t find only this advice, as if it were supposed to save you. However, the right diet of course matters a great deal, and I can’t leave it out completely.
A healthy diet should be above all varied and full of whole foods, where you pay attention to quality. It should provide an adequate intake of all nutrients, vitamins and minerals. As soon as the body lacks any of them, it lets us know clearly through signs such as the condition of our skin and hair or digestive problems.
I don’t recommend any strict diets or nutritional trends. I definitely don’t believe that there is one way of eating that suits everyone. Everyone should observe their own body and give it enough of everything it needs. At the same time, we can probably all agree that in recent years our diet has contained too many processed foods, too much sugar, salt and fat, which our grandmothers didn’t know at all.
So I recommend focusing on the quality and wholeness of foods and enough variety rather than strict calorie counting and weighing portions.
3/ A sport you enjoy
Sport and exercise are, of course, among the foundations of a healthy lifestyle. People have stopped moving enough, and a sedentary lifestyle now prevails. Our bodies are not adapted to it, so they naturally begin to suffer. This is due to frequent computer work, but also to other factors linked to the 21st century.
If you think about it for a moment, you will realise that almost nothing forces us to move any more. We drive everywhere in comfort, food is delivered to our door, and the most common sport people spend their time on is couch surfing.
Find a sport that you truly enjoy, not just one that happens to be trendy. Not everyone enjoys going to the gym to lift heavy weights, and some would rather go for a run. Or they prefer cycling, dancing, yoga or golf. Simply put, anything is better than nothing. Don’t forget team sports either, where you can have fun with others, and the right training partner can push you even on your lazy days.
4/ Enough natural movement
As I mentioned in the previous point, in just a few decades we have lost most of our natural movement. If you sit in an office all day, your biggest activity is walking from the building to the car and then from the car to your home, and then you go for an hour’s run on the treadmill or a hard workout at the gym, you may be surprised that it simply isn’t enough.
This monotonous lifestyle, which you try to make up for with an hour of intense exercise a day (or just a few times a week), can actually harm you even more, because your bones and muscles are not used to such strain and can quickly become injured.
Bring more natural movement into your life, spread throughout the day, which keeps your body active on a regular basis. This could be walks in nature or stretching after every hour at the computer. Try getting off public transport a few stops early, or have a parcel sent to the post office instead of your home and walk to collect it. For some people, starting with a magical 15 minutes of walking a day is enough, but don’t be afraid to gradually add more and try to reach the recommended 10,000 steps a day.
A combination of natural movement throughout the day and a few hours of intense sport a week is by far the best for your health.
5/ Vitamin C as basic support
Many people only think of it when they feel something coming on. But by then you are a bit like putting out a fire that has already started. An adequate intake of vitamin C works as excellent prevention that helps your immunity, healthy blood formation, recovery from injuries and illnesses, and much more.
A deficiency may show up as:
- poor hair and skin condition
- frequent cold sores
- bruises
- brittle bones and poor recovery
- anxious moods
Many years ago we were able to produce vitamin C ourselves. However, our bodies lost this ability for reasons that are still unknown, and we are one of 3 species of mammals that can no longer produce vitamin C and must get it from food (the others being bats and guinea pigs).
Tip: You don’t need to rush to the pharmacy for supplements straight away. An adequate daily dose of vitamin C can be found, for example, in half a red pepper, 5 mandarins or broccoli.
6/ Spending time in nature comes naturally to us
People are naturally drawn to spending time in nature, which calms us and recharges our energy. It is something natural that many people forget. You can combine time in nature with tip 4 and treat yourself to several walks a week. Don’t underestimate the power of nature and make it part of your routine.
If you don’t get out into nature very often and you miss it, you can create the atmosphere of a forest and meadow at home too. Home accessories made of wood and other natural materials, scents and various essences, or fresh flowers in a vase work brilliantly for this. Research even suggests that people feel better in timber-framed houses, because the atmosphere of wood has a positive effect on them.
7/ Don’t forget to get enough vitamin D
We lack vitamin D mainly in the winter months, when there is not enough sunlight, which is our usual source of it. Yet it is a powerful helper, and together with vitamin C it makes a really strong pair.
I recommend topping it up mainly in the winter months, but you can do so all year round. However, always try to find the most natural source possible.
8/ Cold exposure is not just a passing trend
In recent months, cold exposure has really taken off. It seems every other person is now posting photos on Instagram from icy lakes or ice baths. Before you throw yourself into similar activities, slow down. Plunging into icy water without training can do you more harm than good.
Cold exposure should happen gradually and naturally. If you don’t yet feel ready for cold showers, build up slowly. To begin with, you can simply lower the water temperature and push yourself a little further each day. Even Wim Hof needed training for his technique and gradual cold exposure.
You can also start with very small steps. You could simply wear one layer of clothing less than you are used to, or expose only your arms and legs. This is also cold exposure. You will work your way up to icy water gradually.
9/ A regular routine
If you want to start living healthily, don’t underestimate the power of regularity. It matters most for your sleep pattern, which you should keep as regular as possible. However, a routine also helps us in other areas of life. A well-established routine helps us stick to all kinds of rituals and habits that help us with performance and efficiency and keep us healthy.
If you create a really firm, regular routine, it will be easier to resist the temptation to break any of your habits. You won’t skip a nourishing breakfast, a walk in nature or reading your favourite book in the evening. It will become second nature to you.
10/ Focus on your surroundings
The environment you live in plays an important role in your quality of life. This applies whether we are talking about the environmental side, where you are affected by the quality of the air, the water or the food available to buy (people in the Ostrava region and in South Bohemia have completely different health problems, coincidence?), or about the people around us.
While you can only rarely influence the environmental quality of your surroundings (for example, by moving house), you can focus on your immediate surroundings fairly easily. Above all, this means filtering out toxic people and adapting the immediate environment you live in (your home, for example).
11/ Are you really doing what you enjoy?
Another important area you can change to significantly improve your life is work. Think about it for a moment: Are you really doing what you enjoy and what fulfils you?
If you are shaking your head, you are in the same situation as roughly 80% of people. However, that doesn’t mean it is right or acceptable.
There are many cases where simply changing jobs solved many more problems in people’s lives, including health or relationship problems. If you feel unhappy for 8 hours (or even more) a day, it will have a significant effect on your health. How could you start living healthily when you feel disgusted, bored or even worse for a third of the day?
12/ Not all stress is the same
The word stress is used constantly in today’s society. We hear about it in connection with almost every illness and depression, we experience it at work, it causes infertility and so on. However, you may be surprised to learn that not all stress is the same.
A certain amount of stress is actually healthy. It can spur us on to great performance, motivate us or protect us from danger. The problem only starts with too much stress. A few stressful days won’t ruin your health straight away, but long-term chronic stress will.
Learn to filter out stress, look after your mental hygiene and remember your mental health when caring for your health. A walk in nature can help (walking and nature again, right?), as can meditation, various breathing exercises or eliminating stress factors. Here we could come back to work, toxic people and so on.
13/ Look inside yourself
Living healthily is not only about the physical side. Caring for our mental health is also extremely important. The two areas influence and complement each other. As soon as one of them is out of balance, the other one is thrown off too.
You can find all the answers to your questions within yourself. You just need to stop, slow down and find a moment just for yourself. The meditation mentioned earlier is ideal for this, but for some people simply observing their thoughts is enough to start with. Once a day, try to become aware of what has been running through your head all day and calm your mind a little.
14/ Everyday little things
One small decision here, another there, and they add up to your whole day. Everyday little things have a greater impact on our health than you might admit. These are decisions such as: Should I eat that chocolate or not? Shall I go for a swim today or tomorrow? I’ll put up with this awful job a bit longer, but if my boss criticises my work one more time, I really will hand in my notice.
But one chocolate bar becomes a daily habit, tomorrow becomes a month from now, and a bit longer sometimes lasts several years. And suddenly you are overweight, your muscles are stiff and you are suffering from burnout, and you don’t even know how it happened. Do you see what I’m getting at?
If you really want to live healthily, focus on the little things too and gradually improve and change them one by one, and build new habits.
15/ Forget everything above if…
Forget everything above if it stresses you out and makes you feel unwell. Perhaps the time isn’t right yet, or you are trying to bite off more than you can chew. Simply put, if anything is more likely to cause you anxiety and stress, just drop it and try something else.
The goal is not to change your whole life in a day, a week or even a year. Start with the basics and fine-tune the details as you go. You will feel more motivated and find it easier to adapt to your new, healthier lifestyle.
