5 Tips on Maintaining a Healthy, Active and Productive Lifestyle

5 Tips on Maintaining a Healthy, Active and Productive Lifestyle

It seems like the more we automate life, the less organized and more frazzled we’ve become. We all want to live a long and productive life and enjoy a long fun-filled retirement. Here are five great things you can do to maintain health and add years on to your life:

• 1) Exercise at least twenty minutes each day. Exercise is important, it stimulates muscle retention, and gives you higher levels of serotonin in the brain¹. When you feel good after exercising, things will be more in balance overall. You will have more energy to conquer the day, better clarity to remember things, and you will feel tired when you should at night.
• 2) Maintain a well-balanced diet. Sometimes what we put into our bodies can throw us completely off kilter. When we are busy and no preplanned meals, It’s tempting to delve into pre-packaged snack foods, or fast food, to quiet the grumble in our stomach. This catches up with us, as we start to feel tired, sluggish, struggle with concentration, and general feelings of malaise. We need to make sure we get the proper amount of vitamins and nutrients from the foods we eat so that we have the energy to be on the go all day long. This includes protein, carbohydrates, and fats and all of the wonderful things that fruits and vegetables can give us.
• 3) Make lists, and check them during the day. Lists aren’t just for grandma! Taking the time to write out our chores and responsibilities helps with more than memory. How often do you forget to do tasks because they were not right in front of you. By making a list, you can adequately plan out your day. You might not complete everything listed but might be able to carry out more. You’ll have the satisfaction of crossing items off the list once completed. Starting each day with a to do list helps, ending your day by making a list is a tool for better sleep².
• 4) Get a good night of sleep. So often, sleep falls to the wayside, and insomnia becomes a regular part of our routine throwing our bodies out of balance. Ensuring that you take care of your restlessness right when it happens will make you a much healthier person. Try to go to bed at the same time every night, avoid eating heavy meals near bedtime, avoid screen time, and plan on staying asleep for seven to nine hours. You will look and feel so much better the next day.
• 5) Don’t sweat the small stuff. It’s easy to get caught up in the negative mental loop of all the tedious things in our lives. Taking a few moments to remember all the positive thing can help offset the negativity. This is pretty self-explanatory, but there is no use in placing undue stress upon the body worrying about things that are mostly our of our control. All this will do is release stress hormones and make us frazzled. Prioritize all things stressful and realize that some aspects of our lives are not worth getting upset about. These 5 steps seem so simple, at least on paper, remaining consistent with them in real life is the challenge. Making a lot of lifestyle changes to incorporate these steps can be overwhelming, if you have a lot of changes on your path to better health it’s better to tackle them one at a time in an attempt to build healthy habits. These are the tools health coaches use to help you with your journey to better health³.Health coaches work with clients to guide them along their path to well-being.
  1.

  Turcotte, MS, RD M, TURCOTTE, MS, RD MICHELE. The Effects of Exercise on Serotonin Levels. LIVESTRONG.COM. https://www.livestrong.com/article/22590-effects-exercise-serotonin-levels/. Published October 28, 2018. Accessed October 28, 2018.

  2.

  MacMillan A. Do This One Simple Thing to Fall Asleep Faster. Time Magazine. http://time.com/5097840/how-to-fall-asleep-faster/. Published January 12, 2018. Accessed October 28, 2018.

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  Empowering you to better health and fitness. MpowerU2 Fitness. http://www.mpoweru2.fitness/. Published October 28, 2018. Accessed October 28, 2018.