While it seems that every time you want to make a change for a healthier live style it ends up costing you money whether it is for gym memberships or weight loss programs or vitamins. 1. Walk. The longest living people are not the ones that are super fit but the ones that tend to be walkers. Walking 10,000 steps a day is a suggested goal to keep moderately active. This activity helps pump blood through the heart, is light enough exercise for almost every one to be able to do and is easy, available and affordable.
If you live in a car dominated area start by parking your car in the furthest part of the parking lot. Take a stroll around your workplace at lunch time, use the stairs instead of the escalator at the mall. In bad weather use the mall as an indoor area to stroll. If you have children stop driving them to their friends homes in the nieghborhood and walk them over. If you are driving your children to school in the morning stop it- walk them to school.
Take your dog for a daily walk, they will love you for it. Look for opportunities not to take your car. If you are luck enough to live close to work walk there and then walk home for lunch! If you are shopping in an area of big box stores, park your car and walk from store to store. If you need extra incentive to walk couple the idea of walking with saving money by not using your car.
You don't need a pedometer to see if you are walking 10,000 steps a day, just count out how many step you walk at a slow, medium and fast pace in one minute and roughly calculate during the day of how much you have walked.
2. Stretch. Cats spend 80 percent of their waking hours stretching so when they need to be ready to pounce their muscles are toned and ready. Even if you are an active person stretching can protect your muscles from injury and help you get rid of those weird kinks you get when you have slept in an awkward position.
If you are an inactive person stretching will limber up your muscles, make you more pliable and save you from muscle aches and pains. There are many stretching programs you can follow for different muscles groups that cause you pain or stiffness. You can choose your own level of stretching be it 10 minutes of gentle stretching every morning or 45 minutes of gentle to intense stretching when you come home from work.
Go on-line to find general stretching exercises and stretches that will help with your problem areas like your neck or lower back.
3. Sleep. It is estimated that 1/3 of North Americans have serious sleep problems while 9 out of 10 of us say we wish we could get more sleep. We need sleep for brain function, memory retention and reaction speeds. While you might think that you can function on 5 or 6 hours of sleep a night it will take you longer to do even the simplest mental tasks and your reaction speeds will be down making driving vehicles or operating machinery more dangerous. Even mild sleep deprivation can cause irritability, mood swings and bad judgement.
If you are not getting enough sleep at night you need to determine if it is a voluntary or involuntary problem. Voluntary sleep problems are easier to fix- basiclly you are not going to bed when you should be. Turn your TV off. That last hour of mindless TV you are watching would be better spent in bed. Most people have a hard time not watching to the end of a program so they will sit through the last 45 minutes of a show rather than go to sleep. Don't start watching the show in the first place if that is the type of person you are.
Is late at night the only "me" time you get and you would rather stay up late so you don't have to deal with the problems in your life in the morning? Accept the fact that life is easier to deal with on a full nights sleep and acknowledge what is going on.Start working on each problem one at a time. The sooner you get to a problem the easier it is to fix because left alone small problems only grow into big problems.
Involuntary sleep problems are more frustrating. You go to bed and you just can't sleep. While some doctors suggest that is not unusual if it is happening once a week, it is still annoying. If it is happening every night then it is a serious priority that you have to fix.
Are you anxious? You might be watching something on television that is upsetting you like the news or something that is too gory, turn off your TV.
Is your bedroom dusty and dirty? Air out your bedroom and vacuum and dust once a week and change your bed linens and pajamas once a week. You might have a dust mite allergy that is keeping you from sleeping.
Will your mind just not turn off? You might still be stimulated by the caffeine from coffee, tea, energy drinks or pop that you have had during the day. Stop all caffeine by noon. Stop eating after 7pm. You might be eating a food that you have a slight allergy to and your body is dealing with the allergy rather than letting itself fall asleep or you might be over eating and your body is trying to deal with digestion rather than sleep.
If you are having other physical symptoms along with your sleeplessness then see your doctor as it might be a medical problems such as a under active or overactive thyroid.
What ever your sleep problems you need to have a routine that you follow every night. Sleep needs are very individual but in general people need from 7.5 to 9 hours of sleep a night.
4. Stop drinking soda pop. On average we are consumng 200 to 400 more calories a day than we did 50 years ago just through liquids. Soda pop was never meant to be consumed daily, it was originally developed to be a stomach digestive and then when it was revealed that it had no medicinal properties it was promoted as a treat at ice cream parlours.
The ingredients of soda pop are water, sweetener (a type of sugar or artificial sugar) food colouring, and flavours. If you are drinking sugar free soda pop you are ingesting artificial sweeteners that we are not 100 percent sure of how they react in the human system over time. For some people artificial sweeteners have cause migraines and in others gas. There are no health benefits to drinking soda pop, if you are thirsty drink water.
5. Drink water to start your day. Water might have been over hyped in the last few years and there is now doubts to whether we all need to drink the 8 glasses of water every day that has been suggested, there is now thought that drinking a glass of water when you wake up in the morning can kick start your metabolism.
You can become dehydrated while you sleep especially during the winter if you sleep in a house with forced air and no humidifiers. You can probably tell yourself if you are dehydrated by how sticky your mouth is in the morning. Also if your urine is light coloured and has no odor you are hydrated but if it is a dark colour and bad smelling you are under hydrated and perhaps even dehydrated. Being dehydrate is making your kidneys and liver work harder than they need to and is not washing impurities out of your system. A glass of water first thing in the morning is an easy way to get your system going.
6. Floss your teeth. OK this is not exactly free because you need to buy the floss, but it is so inexpensive that it might as well be free (and your dentist is always giving you floss anyway).
Recent studies have coupled poor dental care with a shorter life span. While research is still being conducted to whether this is due to the fact that people that have poor dental care have poor health care in general it is suspected that dental health can cause other health problems.
When you brush your teeth but don't floss food bits still stay between your teeth and you also get plaque build up, both of which bacteria thrives on. Bacteria that breeds in the mouth does get passed into your system when you swallow and then your body is dealing with the mouth bacteria when it could be fighting off other infections. Studies are now being conducted on whether dental diseases can pass to the heart and cause heart diseases.
7. Do math problems in your head. Your brain continues to make new connections the more you exercise it.The old saying "use it or lose it" really is true. To keep your mind sharp it has to be challenged in some way. Think of your brain as a muscle, if you don't exercise your muscle it becomes flabby and weak- the same with your brain.
If you are exercising your brain it will also be easier to understand new concepts and ideas. Doing math problems in your head is a simple way to exercise it that you can do anywhere. See if you can add up the prices of your purchase as you check out at the store. See if you can work out the tax on purchases. Cross words and sudoku puzzles are also good work outs as is learning a new language but none of them are as portable as doing math problems.
8. Cut down on caffeine. Caffeine can be in coffee, tea, soft drinks or energy drinks. Caffeine is a drug and as a drug it affects your mind and body. While we know that caffeine can cause sleep problems it can also exasperate nervousness and stress which can lead to problems with high blood pressure and other health problems.
You might be drinking your caffeine for reasons other than you need. If you are cold and want a warm beverage most of us turn to coffee, tea or hot chocolate, all of which have caffeine, if we are thirsty often the coldest and quickest beverage we can find is a pop.Try to find substitutes like herbal teas when you need a warm drink and cold juice or water will quench your thirst.
Like all drugs you should not stop ingesting caffeine abruptly as this can lead to head aches, migraines, shaking and irritability. If you drink a great deal of coffee after your first cup try drinking your coffee with half decaffeinated and over the weeks add more and more decaf until that is all you are drinking.
If you find that you desperately need a mid afternoon boast do something active like lifting weights, jogging in place or jumping up and down. You might be drinking a lot more coffee than you think you are. A "cup' of coffee is considered to be 6 ounces, while most coffee shops serve 12 ounces for their small coffee. Coffee mugs also tend to be oversized so your 4 cups a coffee a day might actually be 8 cups.
9.Balance. You don't think about your need for balance until you have lost it. With out balance even walking across the room can be impossible.
As we age we lose our balance partly because we become less active. Falls because of balance issues are the leading cause of injury for people over 65. Even though balance is extraordinary important most work outs don't have any exercises for it. By starting to practice your balance now you are protecting yourself when you get older and you will find you will be more agile.
To start balancing just stand on one foot and close your eyes. You should be able to do this for at least 30 seconds (count to 30 in your head slowly). If you can not then practice every day until you can.(Do each foot). If you find that easy then balance on one foot with your eyes closes and rotate both your arms, if you find it easy rotate your arms in one direction then do them in opposite directions while maintaining your balance.
To also give your brain a work out at the same time try brushing your teeth with the hand you don't usually use while balancing on the opposite foot. Look for opportunities in your day to pracitce your balance.
10. De-stress. We live in a hectic world and stress is only natural but it has to be maintained or it can lead to health problems. Turning to alcohol, drugs, or food to help you relax is only going to lead to other problems. Numbing yourself in front of a television set isn't a solution either. Sometimes you just need acknowledging that you need a moment to yourself and take it. If you find the stress in your life overwhelming maybe you are taking on too much on yourself and you need to ask for help.
Family members or co-workers might not realize what you are going through or think that you want to handle it by yourself. Ask for help. One of the simplest relaxation techniques is to breath deeply in through the nose and out through the mouth slowly six times. While this sounds so simple that most people don't even bother to try it, it can lower your blood pressure and calm you in about 5 to 10 minutes.
Talking to a friend, petting an animal or taking a warm bath or shower are all easy ways to de-stress. Another of the great ways to de-stress is to walk, and that brings us full circle to the top of our list.
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Copyright Ingrid Talpak 2009
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