Maintaining Healthy Lifestyle
The concept of happiness is inalienable from a healthy lifestyle. A healthy mind resides in a healthy body is an age old adage. Good health leads to a sound body and a happier life. Let’s see in this chapter what all constitute to be a healthy lifestyle.
Eat Healthy
There are three main things to be had in a healthy lifestyle. The first one is to have healthy food. The second one is to have proper movement of body. The third one is to sleep properly and have an adequate sleep. So, how do we eat better?
First thing is to avoid meals that have a lot of fats, trans-fats, saturated fats, sugar content, and carbohydrates. Lower energy level and higher weight leads to higher anxiety levels in an average individual. Things like soft drinks, hard drinks and artificial drinks damage our body a lot. Cigarettes and pipes are also deleterious for us. One must eat a lot of vegetables and fruits. Having a lot of trans-fats and saturated fats leads to anger and depression. High sugar content leads to cancer as well. Now, depression, aggression and frustration lead to damage to our relationships, and hence, lead to unhappiness.
Sleep Well
Getting less than 7 hours of sleep is detrimental to health. Ideally, 8 hours of sleep is required. Only 2.5% of the people in the world, a study says, need less than 7 hours of sleep. A vast majority of people around the world need between 7-9 hours of sleep. Less sleep reduces our daytime alertness, makes us more impulsive and makes us less attractive to people.
Moreover, a lot of wear and tear of the body parts happens during the sleep. Moreover, adequate sleep helps us to be more focused after we wake up. Poor sleep leads to dissatisfaction with life. The immune system also gets impacted.
Move Your Body
Physical activity is required for a healthy body. Sitting at a stretch for more than 6 hours a day leads to accelerated death. It is mandatory for each one of us to have a lot of mobility. Not having physical activity leads to obesity. Going to gym for workout for 2 hours a day is not enough. One needs to have physical activity to be able to live longer.
A study says that each hour we keep sitting in front of the TV, we lose 22 minutes of our life, and i.e. our lifespan reduces by 22 minutes for each hour of TV viewing.
Attention Deficit Trait
Having an unhealthy lifestyle can make a person impatient, frustrated, distracted from normal life and restless. These are the symptoms of ‘Attention Deficit Trait’, a term mentioned by Edward M. Hallowell in his paper ‘Overloaded Circuits’. This trait gives us a feeling that our life is too complex and cannot be handled well.
Attention Deficit Trait can be tackled by eating well, moving well and sleeping well. A person having a better decision making capacity will be able to lead a happier lifestyle. To develop good habits, we can do some simple activities that can go on to make huge difference in our lifestyle.
Try to take the road to office that does not have any fast food eating joints.
Set up alarm in your clock and keep the clock a little farther from your bed, so that you have to necessarily stand on your feet to silence the alarm.
Try avoiding those markets which have unhealthy food.
Keep your cooking area close to the washing sink, so that you always wash your vegetables and fruits before eating them.
Keep your skipping ropes and track suit near to your alarm clock, so that the first thing you see after silencing the alarm is the outfit and equipment for workout.
Keep an alarm or reminder that reminds you to sleep on time.
Such small habits can go a long way in inculcating a good habit within us. This is a way to increase happiness level in life.
