Health is wealth, as the saying goes. This is hard to appreciate if you’re in the full bloom of youth and are at the stage when you’re at your strongest and fittest. However, this is not true for all young people and certainly not true for those who are a little more senior and have encroaching health and fitness challenges.
To live a healthy and fit life is to live pain-free. The constant reminder of backache that needs pain relief treatment or a niggling injury that hampers your movement and your day, can also put a damper on your mood. It can make you less sociable and more irritable. It can also affect your work as you are unable to fully focus. Doing what’s good for your body not only keeps you pain-free, it will help you enjoy all aspects of your life more.
Exercise
We all know that sport helps us to keep fit. Unless it’s chess, taking part in sport means that you’re improving your cardiovascular capability, keeping your muscles tone and strong, strengthening your core, and keeping your body limber.
It’s also a great way to create connections. There are solitary sports like track and field, but even then you’d meet people who are engaged in the same activity. If you choose to play a team sport, there is a great sense of camaraderie that can be built. Often, for people who play in team sports, the social aspect of participation becomes just as, if not more important than the physical activity.
Be careful not to be too competitive or overdo it. It’s good to push your body but overreaching can cause injury, precisely the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve with a healthy strong body and balanced mental health.
Eat Well
Again this advice is nothing new. However, with countless diets online and new research on healthy food that seem to contradict each other, it’s harder to know exactly what is healthy to eat what is not. Some diets espouse the benefits of keeping to a high protein diet which you can get from meat, while veganism asks you to completely abstain from meat. Fat is good for you if it’s a certain type. It can be confusing knowing which type is good and how much of it you can consume until it becomes bad.
It could be that moderation with a heavy dose of self-discipline is a good way to eat. We all know that refined sugar is bad but we also know it’s hard to resist and avoid given the amount of foodstuff it’s in. Avoiding processed food as much as possible is one way to limit not only sugar but salt and bad fat. Eating a wide range of fresh food is probably the best way to get the nutrition you need to keep a healthy mind and body.
It’s easy to take health for granted until injury strikes. Then, not only is physical healthy compromised, but your mental well-being could also be affected. Keep to sensible eating habits and regular exercise and you’ll not only enjoy life more, you’ll enjoy it for longer.
