Wellness is more than just a mere feeling, it's rather an action. It needs to be looked at with a wider lens. To state it simply, wellness is an ongoing and intentional method of living your life efficiently. While having specific wellness goals in mind is excellent, people tend to go to extremes to achieve these goals. They jump on the latest workout trend or fad diet, which often leads to the exhaustion of mental and physical energy.
Every day you wake up with the ability to turn things around and start your journey towards a wellness-focused lifestyle. Maintaining a wellness-focused lifestyle is about making simple and daily effective changes. Building healthy lifestyle habits and cutting off all the unhealthy patterns is one of the first steps towards adopting a wellness-focused lifestyle. So, let's take a look at these habits individually to assess the role it plays in the lifestyle and what we should do about them:
1. Sleep
Might come as very common advice, but trust us, most people ignore this common but extremely crucial step towards overall wellness. Our body requires optimal rest and sleep to help the body function properly. This is the healing that has zero alternates and hence is extremely crucial for mental and physical well-being. Taking proper sleep helps in regulating the hormones that are directly related to our emotions and mood. Generally, when you experience being irritated or emotionally imbalanced, there are high chances of your body not taking sufficient sleep. An uninterrupted sleep of about 6 to 7 hours is needed by the body to maintain optimal wellness. Moreover, sleep disorders have become a bit mainstream in today's time. Or you might not have a sleep disorder but you have trouble going to sleep, staying asleep or you might be just feeling exhausted all the time. Take a few steps back and think about the quality of sleep you have been having. Find out the reason for your bad sleep and you're halfway there!
2. Food is your fuel
Nutrition serves as fuel for the human body. Food is to our body what gasoline is to the car. The car runs at its optimal level when the right fuel is used in the car. The majority of the world is already familiar with the numerous benefits of good nutrition. However, certain things like cost, access or taste might make eating healthy a hard nut to crack. Make plant-based foods as the main component of all of your meals. This includes fruits plus vegetables along with nuts, seeds and whole grains. Be sure to use fresh or frozen fruits/vegetables over the canned ones. Make it your habit to read food labels. It'll help you in understanding if the product contains the nutrition your body needs. The most important bit for everyone is to limit the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages.
3. Move every day
Planned exercises or physical movement yields significant benefits for both your body and mind. As a matter of fact, exercises are a proven medium of improving the heart's health, muscles' strength, depression, anxiety and general well-being of the people. Exercises not only improve your physical health but also have positive impact on your brain as you age. It has the potential to reduce the risk for cognitive decline. Cognitive skills impacts abilities like judgement, learning, memory and thinking. Working out will also help you in regaining physical function and independence in your lifestyle. Exercising is known to have a great impact on mental health as well. Have a fixed routine about how you wake up and do your chores. Be sure to consistently stick to that routine no matter what.
4. Do things that you enjoy
Pleasure is an essential component of leading a happy and complete life. Choosing things that you enjoy will help you in achieving a healthier lifestyle, both mentally and physically. While you may need to make a few adjustments to your time schedules, it's very important to focus on those activities that you enjoy doing. Jot down all the activities that you are fond of. Schedule the parts of your day accordingly so as to include the activities you love doing on daily basis. These activities can be anything from cycling, playing a sport or even writing and reading. It can be anything and everything that you love, that's it! Your daily schedule should have at least a few minutes of you doing the activities that you love. This will help you a lot in maintaining a wellness-focused lifestyle.
5. Manage stress
Stress is one of the biggest hindrances between people living a healthy lifestyle. However, everyone has some kind of stress in today's time. Although, it's definitely very much possible to deal with the stress and manage it so that the impact of the stress is reduced. This is why it is important to deal with stress through smart and effective methods. The very first step is to avoid anything and everything that triggers the stress in you. Do things that distract your mind and act as a "mood changer" for you. Exercises and particularly yoga is known to be extremely beneficial for managing stress. Even if your stress is unmanageable, note down the causes of this stress along with what actions can be taken to reduce it. Even if you fail at managing it, make sure to speak about it with your friends, family or go for professional help.
To sum it up - eat, work, exercise, laugh and enjoy your life. Make your health your priority and see yourself leading a wellness focuses lifestyle without you even realizing it. When our well-being is our priority, healthy habits will eventually fall into places in our lifestyles. Forget yesterday, take action today and change your tomorrow for a healthier you!
