In 2020, everyone started giving some extra thought to ways to safeguard their health. 2021 is a year to make aspirations to get healthier a reality. Improving your health may be the key to improving all areas of your life.
1. Change Your Diet
Good health starts in your gut, so you need to be conscientious about how you’re treating your digestion. A digestive system that functions well will make it possible for you to have good energy levels as well as a strong immune system. Slow or irregular digestion can lead to the overgrowth of unhealthy bacteria. A biofilm may line your digestive tract that making it more difficult for your body to harness the nutritional content of what you eat. Likewise, poor digestion can cause weight gain and impede people’s goals to maintain a healthy body weight.
The best way to immediately improve your diet is to reduce your intake of ultra-processed foods. Things that contain a lot of artificial ingredients and seed oils can be extremely difficult for your body to digest. In fact, the mere act of digesting them forces your body to expend an unreasonable amount of energy on the process. If your body has to waste energy on digesting, it will rob other parts of the body and its systems of the energy that they need to function at their best.
Try to limit your intake of foods with an excessive amount of added sugars and refined carbohydrates. They don’t really offer much nutritional content and instead only bombard your digestive tract with filler. Shift towards foods that are made from natural or organic materials.
2. Take Health Supplements
Even ardent efforts to eat healthy may result in some nutritional deficiencies. There are a lot of key vitamins and minerals as well as essential amino acids and protein compounds that simply cannot be found in many foods. Also, a lot of people simply do not care for some of the foods that offer some of the best benefits. For example, a person who does particularly enjoy seafood may be at a loss for Omega-3s, which the majority of people do not get enough of in their regular diet.
A health supplement is an excellent way to address dietary deficiencies while also optimizing levels of certain nutrients that offer key health benefits. Ideally, supplements should be sourced from ingredients that facilitate absorption in your body. People should be wary of supplements that contain a lot of genetically modified ingredients because they may be harder for your body to process. In effect, you won’t be getting the milligrams or daily percentage value of something that a supplement represents if your body cannot process it all with ease.
Consider what health benefits are the biggest priority for you. If you want to support your vision, evaluate the advantages of taking an eye health supplement. For enhanced cognitive function and concentration, look for a supplement that supports brain health and cellular function. Some of these types of supplements are marketed only to older people. In reality, supplements like this can help people of all ages protect the areas of their health that are most important to them. However, first consult a doctor and get a full body check-up from ArabiaMD before you start taking supplements.
3. Educate Yourself About Your Health With Credible Info
A lot of people who neglect the importance of healthy habits do so because they lack awareness about it. In fact, some people make an effort to stay up to date on every new trend or fad about healthy living but don’t really know much about the biology and substantive science of their body’s most important systems.
Part of the problems about a general lack of awareness pertaining to health may be attributable to misinformation. It is an era of misinformation on a variety of platforms that pervade news, politics, and even economics. Things that should be viewed as fact are open to interpretation, and some people or entities present fact as fiction for financial or political gain. Unfortunately, even health which is a field with a foundation in scientific evidence has been the subject of a lot of misinformation. Over the past year, people had to contend with campaigns of misinformation that were initiated for reasons that were totally unrelated to public health and threatened considerably.
You may think why study public health but by improving their understanding of their own health and wellness, people should look to credible sources for health information. They should trust reputable publications, medical publications, and physicians. They should not invest too heavily in other mediums such as social media or podcasts. While these places may be a good place to hear ideas that merit further research, they should not be viewed as authoritative sources for information. Most importantly, people need to follow directives from their own doctors and other medical professionals rather than relying on input from people who do not work in the medical field.
4. Get the Sleep You Can’t Do Without
The rest that your body needs is a prerequisite to good health. There are no shortcuts around getting the right amount of rest. If you haven’t slept enough over the past couple of nights, you can’t really catch up on sleep. Your window to rest your body is finite, so it’s imperative that you be committed and consistent about your sleep habits.
Start supporting your sleep cycle by making yourself get into bed at a reasonable hour every night. When you’re ready for bed, you have to put aside whatever is occupying your mind and set it towards relaxing. Stress will keep you from unwinding. Limit your screen time before you sleep because it can disrupt your internal clock. Also, make sure that you have a comfortable mattress so you can physically relax your body.
When you start becoming more consistent about sleep, you can establish a rhythm. It will be easier for you to get a good night’s sleep night after night. As a result, you may experience better energy levels as well as mental clarity. You can feel better equipped to do everything that you need to in your busy day. You may also have an easier time gearing up to take on additional physical activity or exercises that can improve your health.
If you’re not doing everything that you can to promote good health, you’re putting yourself in jeopardy. Aside from wanting to prevent illness or harm, sharpening your focus on your health offers substantive advantages. You can look better, feel fantastic, and bring a positive attitude to everything that you do. Ultimately, in order to be your best self, you have to feel your best. Utilizing these four strategies to stay healthy will help you pave the way for a brighter and healthier future in the years ahead.
Can Not Sleeping Make You Sick?
Yes, lack of sleep can affect your immune system. Studies show that people who don’t get quality sleep or enough sleep are more likely to get sick after being exposed to a virus, such as a common cold virus. Lack of sleep can also affect how fast you recover if you do get sick.
During sleep, your immune system releases proteins called cytokines, some of which help promote sleep. Certain cytokines need to increase when you have an infection or
inflammation, or when you’re under stress.
Sleep deprivation may decrease the production of these protective cytokines. In addition, infection-fighting antibodies and cells are reduced during periods when you don’t get enough sleep.
So, your body needs sleep to fight infectious diseases. Long-term lack of sleep also increases your risk of obesity, diabetes, and heart and blood vessel (cardiovascular) disease.
How much sleep do you need to bolster your immune system? The optimal amount of sleep for most adults is seven to eight hours of good sleep each night. Teenagers need nine to 10 hours of sleep. School-aged children may need 10 or more hours of sleep.
But more sleep isn’t always better. For adults, sleeping more than nine to 10 hours a night may result in a poor quality of sleep, such as difficulty falling or staying asleep.
Alaska Sleep Clinic is ready to help you improve your sleep and your life. Call us this week to speak with one of our board-certified sleep specialists.
