What is a healthy lifestyle?
A healthy lifestyle helps you gain or maintain good physical and mental health. It involves numerous small, daily choices about how you spend your time, what you eat or drink, and how much you move your body.
What are the benefits of living a healthy lifestyle?
A healthy lifestyle has many benefits. In the short term, it helps you feel good. In the long term, it helps you stay well for longer.
In contrast, an unhealthy lifestyle has negative effects on your health, making it more likely that you’ll develop a serious medical condition that may have been preventable.
10 lifestyle choices with a big impact on your health
How healthy is your lifestyle right now? Which of these habits are you guilty of and what can you do to live better?
1. Inactivity
Nowadays, it takes deliberate effort to be active enough each day. Australia’s physical activity guidelines recommend that adults should be active on most days (and preferably everyday).
By the end of a week, you should have clocked up 2.5-5 hours of moderate-intensity activity such as a brisk walk, golf game, swimming or mowing the lawn. Alternatively, you could do 1.5-2.5 hours of vigorous activity like jogging, aerobics, fast cycling, soccer or netball.
If you don’t think you’re doing enough, then try building more activity into each day by:
Walking or cycling for short journeys
Parking further away
Getting off the bus a few stops earlier
Taking the stairs instead of the lift
Meeting friends for a walk rather than a meal or a movie
Doing more incidental exercise at home by cleaning or gardening.
Start with small changes and build up. A step counter can be a great motivator, encouraging you to reach 10,000 steps a day.
2. An unbalanced diet
There’s truth to the old saying that ‘you are what you eat’. Each time you eat, you’re influencing your health for good or ill. And while there’s no harm in enjoying treats in moderation, it’s very easy for unhealthy choices to creep into your regular diet.
A healthy diet is high in fresh fruits and vegetables, lean meats and wholegrains. Watch your portion sizes too. The second and third helpings will always involve more calories than you need.
Try keeping a food diary for a few days to notice what you eat. And why you eat. If you notice that you’re eating because you’re stressed or bored, then try to distract yourself with something else until the urge passes.
To improve your eating habits, try the reflect, replace, reinforce approach:
Reflect on your good and bad eating habits, paying particular attention to the triggers for unhealthy habits
Replace your unhealthy habits with better ones, for example, eating more mindfully, planning ahead or eating only when hungry
Reinforce your new habits one day at a time and treat any missteps as a learning experience.
3. Too much alcohol
Alcohol is legal but it is a powerful and often dangerous drug too. In the short term, being under the influence of alcohol impairs your judgement and increases the risk of injury.
Long-term heavy drinking increases the risk of many conditions including mental health difficulties, many types of cancer, obesity, diabetes, infertility, heart attack, stroke, dementia and liver failure.
If you enjoy a tipple (or two), then pay attention to how much alcohol you’re having. It’s very easy for alcohol to creep into more of your life than you intended until you’re having a drink whenever you need to relax, cheer up or celebrate.
Previous guidelines suggested that if you’re an otherwise healthy adult, you should drink no more than 10 standard drinks a week and no more than 4 standard drinks on any one day. Newer evidence is showing that there is actually no safe level of alcohol intake. Remember that many drinks contain more than 1 standard serving of alcohol. Check out how much alcohol is in your favourite drink here.
If you’d like to reduce your alcohol consumption or give up drinking altogether, then please talk to us. Your GP can be a great source of support as you try to make these changes. Groups like Hello Sunday Morning can also help.
4. Still smoking
The damaging effects of smoking are now very well known. Quitting isn’t easy but it is definitely worth it – your health starts to improve almost immediately.
Many people do take several attempts before they give up for good. If you’ve tried before then try again, using everything you’ve learnt your triggers to help you overcome them.
Again, please talk to your GP. We’ve helped many people to break the smoking habit and would love to support you too.
5. Sitting down for too long
They say sitting is the new smoking. Too much overall sitting and prolonged periods of sitting are implicated in a growing list of health conditions including obesity, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease and cancer.
So, try to stand up more. Use a standing desk for part of the day, stand up and move at least every half hour, stand up to take phone calls, stand on your train journey, go for walking meetings not sitting ones – every little helps!
6. Not drinking enough water
Water is probably the most vital nutrient your body needs. It’s essential to your body functioning well (or at all).
Women should drink about 8 glasses of water a day while men need 10. To help you drink the right amount, try:
Keeping a bottle of water on your desk and sipping throughout the day
Adding flavour with a slice of lemon or strawberries
Drinking water whenever you eat
Keeping a bottle in the car so you can sip while driving.
7. Poor sleep
Sleep refreshes your body and mind. It strengthens your immune system, protects your heart, boosts your mood and improves your memory.
Poor sleep has negative effects on your health. Are you often going to bed too late, taking a long time to settle or waking in the small hours?
Tweaking your pre-sleep behaviour can help you get a better night’s rest. Try to cut back on stimulation in the evenings (think caffeine, exercise, too much screen time). Then get into a rhythm of going to bed and getting up at roughly the same time each day, training your body to expect sleep at certain times.
8. Neglecting relationships
Your social life can actually improve your health. Many studies show that people who are strongly connected to the family, friends and wider community are happier, have fewer health problems, and live longer.
9. Watch your weight
Weight creeps on quite easily for many of us, particularly during stressful times or after big changes like getting married or having a baby. Obesity is now a significant public health issue in Australia, with estimates suggesting that we’ve reached the point when ⅔ of us are overweight or obese.
Many of the tips above will also help with your weight. Being more active, eating a balanced diet, reducing alcohol and getting a better sleep all help manage weight.
Your GP is a great source of advice and support on managing your weight. We know it’s hard but we’re here to help you shed the kilos and improve your health.
10. Reduce stress
How much stress are you under? Is it the short-term type like rushing to get to work on time? Or is long-term stress from a relentless workload or caring for someone with a serious illness?
Long-term stress has many effects on your health and wellbeing, influencing your immune system, digestion, heart health and mood.
Sometimes, it’s wise to consider reducing stress by finding a different job or moving closer to family support. Sometimes you can’t change the situation but you can learn ways to reduce the impact of stress on your body.
How Peregian Family Medical Centre can help
Your GP isn’t just here to treat short-term illnesses or refer you on to a specialist. We’re here to help you achieve the best possible health. We’d love to help you develop better lifestyle habits that will reduce the risk of serious illnesses and improve your quality of life.
Make a preventive healthcare appointment today.
Disclaimer
All information is general in nature. Patients should consider their own personal circumstances and seek a second opinion.
