Most of us take our health for granted and it isn’t until we suffer a problem that we realize how grateful we should be for a normally functioning body. As someone who has made dramatic progress over the years in taking better care of myself, I know it is possible to change those deeply ingrained habits and make healthy living a normal course of action that does not require extra effort. Here are some tips that worked for me, and I hope they will work for you too.
Get Your Upstairs in Order
What is going on in our mind will set the stage for everything in our life. Our decisions will be influenced by our thoughts and beliefs, and our view of ourselves. Becoming a healthier person means making decisions that support this goal, and getting your mind right will get your health right. Stress, anxiety and all those other negative emotions work at cross purposes, and thwart success. Any activity that helps strengthen the mind and protect it against these nefarious elements will be a powerful ally in your fight against bad habits and self-sabotaging behavior. When you are feeling good mentally, you will want to feel good physically and eating better, exercising more and other healthy habits will become much more attractive to you, and easier to carry out.
Develop a Greater Appreciation of Your Body
If we truly understood how amazing our bodies are, and what a healthy body brings to the table, we would not abuse them the way we do, that is for sure. We would make taking care of them a top priority in our life; we would not struggle as much with our ‘’health demons’’ like overeating and sedentary lifestyles. Once I really started thinking about how amazing my body was, and all that it did, taking better care of it became so much easier. I felt much more motivated to do right by it. We look at those elderly people all hanging by a thread,and while there is some degree of inevitable decline, the belief that we cannot just help but fall apart as we age is just not true.
Follow the Basic Tenets of Healthy Eating
This last tip is certainly nothing new; we have been told to eat right so many times, that we have just tuned it out; we grossly underestimate the health benefits of eating all those boring foods people tell us to eat over and over again. But, when you eat those foods on a regular basis, it is a cumulative effect that can have a major impact on whether you develop certain diseases and how you age over time. Once I started actually following this advice that is so often dismissed, I noticed a huge change in how I felt and how I looked. Supplementing your diet with herbal teas is a great idea as well, since many are super-rich in antioxidants—substances which fight cell damage—such as chamomile tea and parsley tea. Do not forget the other simple tip we throw out the window—drink plenty of pure water. Your cells need it to function optimally, it can prevent overeating and it flushes out all the nasty gunk that builds up in our bodies.
