I and many others are promoting the benefits of living a healthy lifestyle, but what does that actually mean? In general, most would agree that a healthy person doesn’t smoke, is at a healthy weight, eats a balanced healthy diet, thinks positively, feels relaxed, exercises regularly, has good relationships, and benefits from a good life balance.
Maybe I should start by trying to look at a few definitions for the word - lifestyle. A definition in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language says : ‘A way of life or style of living that reflects the attitudes and values of a person or group’.
In an Encyclopedia of Public Health: Lifestyle is defined as:‘In public health, “lifestyle” generally means a pattern of individual practices and personal behavioural choices that are related to elevated or reduced health risk’.
The World Health Organisation in 1946 defined health as ‘A complete state of mental, physical and social well-being not merely the absence of disease’.
Wikipedia: defines a lifestyle as the way a person lives. This includes patterns of social relations, consumption, entertainment, and dress. A lifestyle typically also reflects an individual’s attitudes, values or worldview. A healthy lifestyle is generally characterized as a “balanced life” in which one makes “wise choices”.
A final definition of lifestyle is:“The aggregation of decisions by individuals which affect their health, and over which they more or less have control. …
What is the definition of Healthy Living?
The World Health Organization (WHO), defines Health as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, not simply just the absence of disease.
The actual definition of Healthy Living is the steps, actions and strategies one puts in place to achieve optimum health.
Healthy Living is about taking responsibility for your decisions and making smart health choices for today and for the future. So healthy living would consist of:
Physical (For the body):
- Good nutrition, eating right
- Getting physically fit, beneficial exercise,
- Adequate rest
- Proper stress management.
- Self-supportive attitudes,
- Positive thoughts and viewpoints
- Positive self-image.
- Forgiveness,
- Love and compassion;
- You need to laugh and experience happiness;
- You need joyful relationships with yourself and others.
- Inner calmness,
- Openness to your creativity,
- Trust in your inner knowing.
Have you ever wondered what "living a healthy lifestyle" actually means? Do you ever feel that there are unrealistic standards related to improving your health - or just downright confusion about how to improve your health?
Well, this article tackles a couple of the biggest barriers to actually getting going towards living a healthy lifestyle and experiencing the many joys of being healthy.
Let's define "lifestyle" - a manner of living that reflects the person's values and attitudes. It's how you live your life, reflecting the choices and decisions you make. The meaning of "healthy" in this context means "having or indicating good health in body or mind; free from infirmity or disease." A healthy lifestyle then, is living life in a way that promotes physical and mental well-being. |
Currently, there are a couple of rather unrealistic concepts in society that make it extremely difficult to get started on improving your health and enjoying a healthy lifestyle.
The first idea is that there are certain, very specific things that define a healthy lifestyle, such as maintaining a certain weight or eating 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. Those can be health goals, but they do not define what living a healthy lifestyle is.
The image below illustrates the four primary factors that contribute to living a healthy lifestyle:
Your personal decisions and choices on how you use them in your life are part of your lifestyle. See the article on healthy eating guidelines to learn how to make healthier food choices, for example.
I read an article on Medicinenet.com that blatantly accuses Americans of not leading a healthy lifestyle, because "...only 3% of American adults adhere to the four tenets of a healthy lifestyle defined in this study. This study confirms that compliance with public health recommendations is remarkably low among US adults..."1
I don't know about you, but this irritates the hell out of me for several reasons. One, because there is no effective education on what the body needs to be healthy in the US, like HOW to maintain a "healthy weight with a body mass index (BMI) in the range of 18.5-25.0" - which is one of the four things that they define as living a healthy lifestyle.
This pompous, pretentious attitude oppresses a lot of people and is another barrier to being motivated to even learn how to improve your health. Stating that people who aren't maintaining a healthy weight, for example, are guilty of not living a healthy lifestyle is absurd when the facts are that the diet industry rakes in billions of dollars a year from folks who WANT to lose weight. Obesity is a national epidemic.
We can then conclude that that those who accuse us of "not living a healthy lifestyle" are the ones guilty of failure to help their patients with anything effective to achieve and maintain a healthy weight or other similar factors, like not smoking. (I smoked for 30 years and no doctor helped me to stop, ever!)
Crikey, when I read stuff like that, it sounds like we are bad, misbehaving dogs, peeing on the rug or something that we know we shouldn't do but do it anyway!
No wonder such a small percentage of us "pass muster..." We're not bad dogs! We do our best when we feel that we have the power of choice and our own self-determinism over our lives. The joys of being healthy are self-determined, not dictated by some "authority."
Living a healthy lifestyle is a matter of relative choices that you make, the choices being made on the basis of "more healthy or less healthy."
Improving your health is done on a gradient basis. The idea that if you don't get physical activity 30 minutes or more per day at least 5 times a week then you aren't living a healthy lifestyle is a false concept that prevents a lot of folks from even starting in my opinion.
For example, let's take a guy named Joe who leads a pretty sedentary (lack of physical activity) lifestyle. He decides to take a little walk at lunchtime to start incorporating some movement and stress management into his lifestyle. Let's say he starts out by taking a 5 - 10 minute walk at lunch maybe 3 times a week.
According to the definition of "healthy lifestyle" in the above study, Joe is guilty of not living a healthy lifestyle. How do you think Joe might feel if he was accused of that? That he might as well give up right now because it's not real yet for him to engage in physical activity for at least half an hour a day?
I beg to differ. By getting out for a bit of exercise and fresh air, maybe even noshing on an apple mid-morning instead of a doughnut, Joe is certainly living a healthier lifestyle than he was when he was sitting at his desk all day, scarfing down coffee and doughnuts for energy!
So the idea of rigid, "all-or-nothing" compliance to some arbitrary definition of "healthy lifestyle" is probably one of the most unrealistic and ineffective concepts to have if you really want to improve your health and enjoy the joys of being healthy. It isn't a matter of "healthy" or "not healthy." It's a matter of "more healthy" or "less healthy."
The unrealistic ideas that slow us down or prevent us in improving our health are just as important to discuss as going over the factors in living a healthy lifestyle themselves. When you subscribe to À Santé, the health and wellness newsletter of Improving Health and Energy, you'll open the door to useful, realistic help and discussion about how to improve your health.
Starting with the understanding that improving your health is something done gradiently, step-by-step instead of an all-or-nothing activity, you'll be actively living a more healthy lifestyle by tossing that stressful notion into the garbage!
Why is it important?
A healthy lifestyle is a valuable resource for reducing the incidence and impact of health problems, for recovery, for coping with life stressors, and for improving quality of life. There is a growing body of scientific evidence that shows our lifestyles play a huge part in how healthy we are. From what we eat and drink, to how much exercise we take, and whether we smoke or take drugs, all will affect our health, not only in terms of life expectancy, but how long we can expect to live without experiencing chronic disease.
Conditions such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, joint disease, and mental illness are responsible for a vast number of deaths and disabilities. Currently, we rely almost exclusively on the provision of clinical care by highly trained health professionals as our major strategy to deal with these conditions Many health problems can be prevented or at least their occurrence postponed by having a healthy lifestyle.
Why don’t you have a healthy lifestyle?
It’s a busy life for most of us. And keeping ourselves healthy is all too rarely near the top of our list of ‘things to do’. Convenience often wins - we are all so busy that convenience is at a premium.
Good Health is ’simple - but it’s not easy’.
It is so important to make ‘keeping healthy’ a part of our day-to-day living habits. Your health depends on what you do throughout the day, everyday. A healthy lifestyle is absolutely vital. Here is a real simple solution - slowly improve your lifestyle in a step-by-step way. If you take one new health step every two months, for example, in two to three years you will be among the healthiest ten percent of people in the Western world. And boy will you see and feel the benefits.
Improvements do not have to be large steps; take one small step for your health today, keep that one going, and add another one every two months. Have a plan - maybe introduce 6 improvements over the course of a year.
Can you adopt a healthy lifestyle?
Whatever your age, fitness level or body shape, its never too soon or too late to start thinking about living healthily. You can take a step towards healthy living by making one change now to your daily life. That won’t be so hard will it?
Are you living a healthy lifestyle?
Do you wake up with enthusiasm for the day ahead?Do you have the high energy you need to do what you want?Do you laugh easily and often, especially at yourself?Do you confidently find solutions for the challenges in your life?Do you feel valued and appreciated?Do you appreciate others and let them know it?Do you have a circle of warm, caring friends?Do the choices you make every day get you what you want?
The Components Of A Healthy Lifestyle
Eating Healthily – the right nutrition is necessary to live a healthy lifestyle. Your body requires a well balanced diet every day in order to maintain the adequate amounts of vitamins, nutrients and minerals needed to maintain a healthy body.
“To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art.” - La Rochefoucauld
An Active lifestyle - you will need to include fitness as part of your life. Physical fitness keeps your weight in check, helps you sleep better at night, prevents heart attacks and strokes and other health problems, and generally prolongs your life. Basically there are so many benefits of exercising that you really can’t live a full life without it.
Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness. ~Edward Stanley
Stress Management - Emotional stress plays an important role in many illnesses, both directly and indirectly. People are also more likely to smoke, overeat, drink too much, work too hard, argue with others and so on, when they are feeling stressed. Thus, stress management is an important part of your new lifestyle, and meditation and relaxation techniques are truly a key part of living a healthy lifestyle.
Diseases of the soul are more dangerous and more numerous than those of the body. ~ Cicero
Make friends with yourself - Loving yourself is a key to a healthy, happy lifestyle. Self-esteem is all about how much people value themselves; the pride they feel in themselves, and how worthwhile they feel. Self-esteem is important because feeling good about yourself can affect how you act.
The power of love to change bodies is legendary, built into folklore, common sense, and everyday experience. Love moves the flesh, it pushes matter around…. Throughout history, “tender loving care” has uniformly been recognized as a valuable element in healing. ~Larry Dossey
Powering up your Mind and Body - programme your mind for total success. Develop a vision, a compelling future that excites and inspires you, and focus on it daily. Don’t let anything knock you of course, or make you question its possibility. I promise you, by taking control of your thoughts, you will improve your life in a big way.
In minds crammed with thoughts, organs clogged with toxins, and bodies stiffened with neglect, there is just no space for anything else. ~Alison Rose Levy
Life Balance - If you want to achieve a healthy lifestyle you must take steps to ensure you maintain a certain level of balance… spiritually, physically, emotionally, socially, mentally and financially. You need to balance work and family, and all the other areas of your life without spreading yourself too thin and having a guilt trip when you do one thing, but think you should be doing another. All of the key areas of our lives overlap and interlink, effecting each other. Unless we create for ourselves satisfaction in each and every part of our life, we can never truly be fulfilled, or live a contented, happy and healthy life.
“No success in public life can compensate for failure in the home.” —BENJAMIN DISRAELI
Being Healthy is so important. Just change one thing in your life today. Have a Healthy Life beginning now. Living a healthy lifestyle will bring you happiness, health and the life of your dreams. You can fit into your favourite pair of jeans again. You can enjoy all the benefits that perfect health offers you. You can feel your best at all times of the day.
No comments:
Post a Comment