5 important things to do today to ensure good health
Most people think that a hefty bank balance is true wealth. While money is certainly important, it means nothing if one has poor health and cannot enjoy the fruits of one’s labour. Good health is true wealth, and it is up to you to ensure your own longevity by overhauling your lifestyle. As the new year approaches, it is important to invest in your own fitness. Please do so with our top 5 points for ensuring good health for several years:
#1 Buy a good health insurance policy.
The seeds for future good health are sown today. The first step is to invest in a good health insurance policy that is tailored to your needs. It could be an individual or family floater policy, but you must have sufficient coverage for yourself and your loved ones. Buying the health insurance plan ensures that the future costs of hospitalisation and treatment are taken care of, and you don’t need to dip into your savings or spend your income on the same. However, do ensure that the policy coverage is able to beat inflation and that it is at least 10 times your annual income at any time. If it is not, then you must enhance the coverage at the time of policy renewal. You can also buy a super top up plan to supplement the coverage on the primary health insurance policy.
#2 Create a fitness plan.
There is no short cut to good health, and crash diets and random exercises will simply not get you the results you seek. Good health is not about weight loss or being thin. Rather, it is a combination of factors like high immunity to disease, good bone and muscle health, high metabolism, excellent cardiovascular health, and so on. You will need to create a fitness plan that works for your body and preferences: not everybody likes to work out in the gym, and not each person is able to go out running every day. You must find the type of workouts that interest and motivate you, and introduce periodic variations in them so that you will stay the course. If you are unsure about how to work out, you can enlist the help of a fitness trainer who can customise a workout plan for you. You must include a mix of cardio and strength training exercises to achieve overall weight and inch loss and gain stronger muscles and bones. If gym workouts scare you, go jogging, cycling or swimming, or enrol for a Zumba class.
#3 Rehaul your diet.
Every minute you spend working out will come to nothing if your diet is inappropriate. The results you seek are more dependent on what you eat rather than how many hours you sweat it out in the gym. A balanced diet holds the key to good fitness. Ensure that your daily diet covers all the major food groups, and eat moderate portions. Tank up on fresh fruit and vegetable juices to hydrate the body and provide a booster shot of vitamins and other nutrients. Meanwhile, cut out trans fats and any junk food from your diet, including sugary drinks. These reduce the body’s ability to absorb nutrients and create fatty deposits in the liver, kidneys and arteries. Your diet should eliminate processed white sugar, refined flour, colas, artificial sweeteners like Aspartame and trans fats, especially if you are genetically prone to weight gain, diabetes, kidney disease and hypertension.
#4 Sleep as much as possible.
Sleep is the biggest healer in life. It restores tissues, cells, muscles and joints. Good quality deep sleep also reduces the resting heart rate, which improves the heart’s functioning capacity. On the other hand, poor quality sleep is linked with depression, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, loss of mental acuity, irritability, migraine, elevated heart rate, etc. It is important to get as much shut-eye as possible, so that the major organs of the body such as the skin, heart, lungs, kidneys, liver and intestines can be in fine fettle. Right from the smallest cellular function to healing major injuries, good quality sleep is the medicine that heals all.
#5 Indulge in a hobby every day.
Just like one needs to have a steady income to keep themselves in comfort, one needs to have a hobby to keep their mind creatively occupied. Hobbies provide an outlet for bottled up frustration, stress and anxiety, and keep the mind and body busy with an activity that one loves. It could be anything, from cooking to gardening, or from teaching to reading. But it is important to find a hobby that pleases you and helps you pass your spare time. Hobbies keep us grounded and happier with our lives, and infuse us with positivity.
