Nine Simple Solutions to Change Your Life!
We all want to live more healthy lives and with these comparatively simple solutions, you can do a lot to change your life - to a more healthy one!
One hour of exercise
Probably the easiest and cheapest form of exercise to do regularly, as long as you are reasonably fit and able, is walking. If you can combine thirty minutes of walking with a further thirty minutes of different types of exercise, even better. Suggestions include swimming, cycling, gardening and even housework!
Just a thirty-minute daily walk will make the world of difference to your health and well being in so many ways. And as you get used to that daily thirty-minute exercise, you will find yourself able to go longer and longer so that in time you could even include a five mile walk every week or so.
Two liters of water
It can take a bit of effort to ensure you are drinking two liters of water each and every day but benefits are huge and we list them below:
- Lubricating the joints
- Forming saliva and mucus
- Delivering oxygen throughout the body
- Boosting skin health and beauty
- Cushioning the brain, spinal cord and other sensitive tissues
- Regulating body temperature
- Helping the digestive system
- Flushing body waste
- Helping maintain blood pressure
- Assisting the airways
- Accessing minerals and nutrients
- Preventing kidney damage
- Boosting performance during exercise
- Achieving weight loss
- Reducing the chance of a hangover
Three cups of tea
Tea is more than just a popular cold-weather beverage and especially popular in the UK where roughly 75 million cups of tea are consumed daily. I for one drink three cups every day of black tea with fresh lemon. There are said to be a host of health benefits too:
- Reving up your metabolism
- Being anti-inflammatory
- Reducing the risk of dying from certain chronic diseases
- Improving insulin sensitivity
- Being good for the brain
- Possibly helpful in preventing serious disease with antioxidants
- Improving oral health
- Possibly boosting fertility
- Helping with hydration
- Being good for the gut
Four colors on your plate
Every day, you should be having several helpings of vegetables plus some fruit too. And the color of your veggies and fruit is also important because there are different benefits from each color in nature's own color wheel.
Color is also a great way to get your young children to eat their fruit and veggies. They can help you to choose the different colors at the store to maximize the intake of a broad range of nutrients and have fun preparing them ready for a meal that looks like a rainbow on their plates. By ensuring a variety of different colored fruit and veggies, you are guaranteed a healthier and diverse amount of all the essential vitamins and minerals. Find out more about their importance.
Five minutes of meditation
Every evening, we have to remove our makeup and it can become quite a ritual. Along with the removal, we should be replenishing and revitalizing too. So why not use those precious minutes to meditate at the same time?
Aim for mindfulness by practicing bringing your attention to your breath, and then back to the breath when you notice your attention has wandered.
- Get comfortable and prepare to sit still for a few minutes.
- Focus on your breath. Where do you feel your breath most? In your stomach? In your nose? Try to keep your attention on your inhale and exhale.
- Follow your breath for two minutes. Take a deep inhale, expanding your stomach, and then exhale slowly, elongating the out-breath as your stomach contracts.
When we meditate, we inject far-reaching and long-lasting benefits into our lives. Find out more about the reasons for meditating here.
Six songs that motivate you
Everyone has their favorite songs and they are often from different eras in their lives. Only you will know your personal play list. Put it together and play as often as you can to relax, to rejuvenate and of course to motivate.
Seven minutes of laughter
Laughter is the best medicine and we all need at least that seven minutes of laughter every day! Of course, if you can get together with friends this is usually the best recipe for laughter. If that is not possible, watching something on television that invariably makes you laugh is a good path to choose. I have a couple of TV favourites that always do the trick!
Eight hours of sleep
While some people need more than eight hours and others can function perfectly well on less, the almost magical figure of eight hours sleep at night is usually considered to be holy grail.
Apart from making you feel less alert, more irritable and perhaps even unable to function properly, being sleep deprived can have some lasting drawbacks to your health and your well being - especially as you age.
Nine pages of a book
It could be a book, a newspaper, a magazine or a kindle but whatever you choose, try to get into the habit of reading regularly. If you read, you are informed. You are able to take control of your own destiny. Reading is this key that unlocks your personal agency.
Written by Jane Chitty
Jane writes for Healing Natural Oils, a producer and retailer of high-quality, all-natural treatments for a variety of conditions as well as a range of beauty products. Apart from writing about those various conditions, she also covers general health, environmental and other subjects of interest. She has lived in Kenya as well as Cape Town, South Africa and spent time in San Diego, USA. She now lives in Somerset, England with regular visits from her far-flung children and grandchildren. She is a keen gardener and enjoys growing fresh fruit and vegetables with her husband on their joint allotment. As a result, there is something available to use in the kitchen virtually all year round. Her regular posts can be found on our blog.