Healthly Living Tips

Although we know about many health tips – 5 A Day, for example – and follow some on many days, or even most days, getting into a daily rhythm is perhaps the most difficult.

Let’s stay with the benefits of 5 A Day. You will gain many essential vitamins, minerals, prebiotic fibers and antioxidants by eating fruits and vegetables every day. The benefits will greatly outweigh any obstacles because a healthy diet:

• lowers your risk of ailments such as obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease
• helps you live longer and in better health for those extra years
• builds your immune system
• can minimize your sugar intake

Fortunately there are now many ways to help us achieve a good daily practice around our meals, not least the astonishingly rich recipes and explanations available online and 24/7. And you’ll find everything for the carnivore all the way through to the vegan with little trouble, although cooking four options for the meat-eater, the paleo, the vegetarian and the pescatarian all in the same meal can have its challenges.

A healthy diet provides our digestive system with fiber and probiotics, helping to create an optimal environment for beneficial microorganisms called the gut microbiota. These bacteria serve a lot of functions alongside digesting our food. They help regulate our immune system, protect against other bacteria that cause disease, and produce vitamins including B vitamins B12, thiamine and riboflavin, and Vitamin K, which is needed for blood coagulation.

Drinking water has numerous benefits. It can help boost your metabolism and increase the number of calories you burn. For example, drinking water helps to boost metabolism by 24-30% for over 1 hour. So if you drink 2 liters of water daily, you will be getting 96 additional calories every day (see source below).

One last thing on a healthy diet. Many nutritionists recommend keeping a gap of 20-30 minutes before and after meals for fluid intake.

Next up – how many hours of sleep do we need? We often hear about so-and-so celebrity who only needs 5 hours sleep a night. And that might be great for small percentage of people. But the recommended amount is 7–9 hours and, just as important, on a regular basis.

The short answer is we need to get enough quality sleep on a very regular basis to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Poor sleep can affect our moods, our appetite hormones, can reduce our mental and physical performance, and lead to poor memory retention.

For children, some studies have linked insufficient sleep to an significant increased risk of obesity in children.

And for all people, young and old, a great sleep pattern gives your body enough time to heal itself and regenerate new cells.

National Library of Medicine: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14671205