The Six Things That Seem to Fix Everything
By: Brad Hankins
If you follow health and wellness articles, regularly research how to improve your physical and/or mental health, subscribe to a social media fitness influencer, or attentively listen to your medical provider on annual visits you typically hear the same six things (in one form or another) will improve your health and wellbeing.
- Exercise regularly
- Eat a diet orientated toward vegetables and heart healthy proteins and fats
- Get adequate sleep
- Manage stress
- Stay hydrated
- Increase socialization
Regardless of source, these same six suggestion are regularly at the top as the most important of all health improvement changes. Seems simple enough. However, not as simple as one would think. What keeps us from fully embracing these six lifestyle changes?
It can be that we have not challenged ourselves physically and mentally enough to force a change. In other words, most of us live somewhat comfortable lives and our health issues can sometimes be managed pharmacologically with little need to change our habits and lifestyles. It is not until we run up against pharmacological limits, be those side effects or limited benefits, that we consider a different wellness path.
Sometimes after experiencing a health issue the recovery process will lead us to rethinking our life choices. That may something as serious as a joint replacement or heart related event, but sometimes it could be recovering from minor fall or blood pressure numbers that are slowly creeping up can make one think about exploring alternative ways to improve overall health.
Of course, the best approach is to incorporate some of these six changes into your life before a health-related event forces a change. If you are struggling to initiate a lifestyle change or can’t seem to sustain your efforts, consider building a change team. This can be a buddy who is on a similar path to share support and successes or bringing a SSYMCA trainer onboard for coaching and training tips or share your goals and journey with friends and family members to build a support base.
Let’s look at ways we can adopt some of these six health improvement changes.
- First, pick one or two of the changes and once you can sustain them add one more at a time.
- Exercise is first about discipline, then about duration, then finally intensity. Set an initial goal of three hours of focused exercise per week. This can be six half hour exercise sessions a week then slowly work your way toward full hour sessions.
- Changes to diet should be both maintainable and sustainable (not just for you but your family as well), single big dietary changes usually only work for days to weeks. First change the amount of food you eat, then slowly change the type of food you eat, looking toward the Mediterranean Diet as an example, https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/mediterranean-diet/art-20047801 .
- We discussed sleep in my August column, essentially the quality of sleep is as important as the amount of sleep. Seven to nine hours of sleep is optimum, and minor adjustments to bedtimes, diet and stress management can make big improvements in sleep quality (please see my previous column for details).
- Managing stress can become a full-time job, which in itself can then become quite stressful. Simply explore finding time for yourself over the course of a day. It may be 15 minutes of reading or a half hour of alone time sitting outside. Or consider other ways https://www.ncoa.org/article/stress-and-how-to-reduce-it-a-guide-for-older-adults/ to mitigate the causes and effects of stress.
- As our bodies are approximately 50 to 60 percent fluid, maintaining and replacing fluid is extremely important. Most fluid counts toward your daily total, soup, tea, coffee (in reasonable amounts), even popsicles all contribute to daily fluid intake. However, water, just plain water, should be your go to fluid for initial rehydration. For females 1.5 liters of fluid a day is the daily goal while males should be drinking 2.0 liters a day.
- Though every day we have more opportunities to communicate with others these same online venues can also serve to divide and isolate us. Instead we can explore sources of joy that are not directly connected to a screen https://www.michiganmedicine.org/health-lab/8-ways-older-adults-can-reduce-loneliness-and-social-isolation-0 , including volunteering and even going back to school or (part-time) work.
With winter approaching now is a great time to take a close look at these six things and see how they may fit into your daily life.
I would enjoy hearing about your fitness journey, please feel free to email me at hankinsb@ssymca.net.
Brad Hankins RN, CPT
