When thinking about improving your health, you must take into account both physical and mental health.  Good physical health can provide a vibrant and energetic life.  Good mental health allows us a sense of well-being, positive self-esteem, and a great outlook on life.

When our mental health is in jeopardy, it directly affects our physical health.  Mental stress greatly affects our physical self, negatively affecting the hormones that influence almost every organ and function in the body. 

Improving your physical health can have a direct impact on your mental well-being as well. The best way to ensure a healthy mind is to reduce or relieve stress.  Some sources of stress should be eliminated if possible, while others may be partly out of your control.  Job stress, for example, cannot always be eliminated.   If this is the case, you should look for ways to reduce your stress or even consider another position if you find your physical health is adversely affected.

Eat Your Way to Better Health

The two biggest paths to better health are eating better and exercising more.  Proper nutrition gives you the energy you need to make it thorough the day.  When you don’t eat regularly or eat unhealthy foods, it is very difficult to stay energetic.

The best diet is no diet.  Everything in moderation is the key.  Fads, such as Atkin’s and the South Beach Diet, should be avoided.  Will they work? Probably, in the short term.  But the jury is still out if they are actually healthy.  An even bigger reason to avoid them is that you will likely gain the weight back … plus more. 

Almost all fad diets are difficult to stay on for the long term because they are so restrictive.  It’s very easy for us to slip back into our old habits, so many people lose the weight and then go back to their regular diet. This “yo-yo” dieting is especially harmful to the body.  Also, when the weight comes back on, many people end up heavier than when they started.

The healthiest way to eat is to have five or six balanced meals per day.  That’s it. 

You might say: “Won’t six meals a day make me even fatter?”  The answer is no.  When you eat that often, you will not be as hungry, so your portions will be smaller.  When people only eat three meals a day, they tend to eat larger portions because they are so hungry at the time. 

Eating five to six meals does three things:
1. You will eat smaller portions and less overall for the day.
2. Your blood sugar levels will remain consistent, which helps keep energy levels up.
3. Your body finds digesting a smaller meal easier, so it is less taxing on your digestive system.

When you eat something every two and a half to three hours, you won’t be as hungry at each meal, so you won’t want to sit down to a huge meal. You most likely won’t even be a little hungry at the time.

These more frequent meals do not have to be the same size — in fact, three meals and two or three healthy snacks is the best combination.  A snack might consist of yogurt and a granola bar.  A meal might be a chicken breast, a potato, and a salad. 

When we don’t eat consistently, we change our metabolism.  This is especially true of people who skip breakfast.  Their metabolism goes into starvation mode and slows down — exactly the opposite of what you want.  You want to jump-start it in the morning and keep it going all day, keeping your energy levels consistent and keeping your body from storing food as fat.

Having consistent blood sugar levels is very important.  When our sugar levels have peaks and valleys, so will our energy levels.  When our blood sugar levels are low, we feel hungry.  This is our body’s way of telling us it needs food, and soon.  We then usually eat a huge meal, which is a big mistake.  When our sugar levels are consistent, our metabolism is constant and so are our energy levels.

A third positive aspect of five or six meals per day is that it’s easier on our digestive system.  When we eat a huge meal, we often have indigestion for hours afterwards, sometimes accompanied by gas and bloating.

When our metabolism is kept constant, we will generally eat less, have a lesser chance of food being stored as fat, and have increased energy levels.

The frequent eating program works with your body, not against it.  You aren’t starving it or shocking it.  It is easy to stick with and make a part of your life.  To lose weight, the total daily amount of calories can be lowered in combination with more exercise.  Don’t skip meals or you will get very hungry and overeat.  Your body wants and needs protein, carbohydrates, and fat and should not be denied.

Vitamins are an important part of our diet.  The Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) is the absolute bare minimum you should consider taking.  Extra vitamins C, B, E, and Selenium, to name a few, have been shown to decrease the chances of getting certain diseases and disorders. 

Since it is difficult to get enough of them every single day, taking a vitamin supplement is usually a good idea.  The reason for supplements is to get the correct amounts to optimize our bodies — a much higher dosage for many vitamins than the minimum amounts which are needed to avoid vitamin deficiency diseases. 

Another common issue is boredom and overeating.  It is very easy to sit in front of the TV and unthinkingly put away hundreds of calories.  If you want a snack, take only an acceptable portion with you when you sit down to watch TV.

Eating is a common way to feel better and to combat boredom, depression, nervousness, or anxiety.   In these instances, you may not even be hungry.  Eating makes you temporarily feel better and you will do whatever it takes to get rid of your negative feelings. 

Instead, you need to recognize and treat the underlying issue.  Maybe you can’t do it on your own,  but the extra food you eat will not fix the problem either.  It will only lead to being overweight, which opens you up to even more problems.

Exercise Your Way to Better Health

Exercise is as important as the food we eat.  Regular exercise keeps our metabolism up, which in turn burns more calories.  It also tones and builds our muscle mass.  Any additional muscle mass increases the body’s metabolism, so   even while your body is at rest, you are burning more calories than you normally would. 

This does not mean you want to build as much muscle mass as possible; it just means that any additional toning or muscle building, no matter how small, will increase your metabolism.  Building bulky muscles usually requires an inordinate amount of training and is not likely with the program described here.

A combination of weight training and cardiovascular training is ideal for a healthy body.  Weight training increases your metabolism, strength, energy, self-confidence, attitude, coordination, and balance. It also strengthens your joints and bones, improves your posture, and decreases your blood pressure. 

A cardiovascular training regimen increases your energy, metabolism, muscle strength, and decreases anxiety and depression. Cardiovascular exercise has also been shown to help reduce the risk of various medical conditions, including stroke, diabetes, osteoporosis, and heart disease.  You are advised to consult your doctor for medical clearance before implementing any exercise program.

You should start by doing 20 minutes of cardiovascular exercise, plus an additional five minute warm-up and a five minute cool-down, three times a week.  Eventually, this can be increased to 60 minutes. 

According to the American College of Sports Medicine, you should train in your heart rate zone.  Calculate 220 minus your age to get your Maximum Heart Rate — the maximum number of times your heart can beat in a minute. Multiplying that number by .60 and then by .80 gives you your personal heart rate training zone. 

Pick an activity you enjoy, whether that’s swimming, jogging, biking, or something else.  You can even mix it up so you don’t get bored.

Weight training should be done at least two times each week, preferably on non-cardiovascular training days.  The workout itself should not take longer than 60 minutes.  The key is to work on the major muscle groups.  You also want to choose exercises that target multiple muscle groups at the same time so you work on the most muscle mass possible during your short workout.  This will give you the most positive benefits of weight training in the shortest time possible.

Another great side effect many people experience during exercise is what is called “runner’s high.”  This phenomenon is a state of euphoria and well-being with heightened senses.  The feeling is probably due to the release of endorphins (the body’s own pain killers) during exercise.  Other athletes besides runners report these feelings as well, but it is still widely debated as to whether the “high” really exists or what causes it.  But the fact of the matter is that runner’s high is a relatively common phenomenon among athletes.

Sleep Your Way to Better Health

With all this daily activity, your body needs time to recharge.  Getting adequate sleep is crucial to keeping your energy levels up and your body functioning at a peak level.  Although the exact amount varies from one person to the next, adults should get at least seven hours of sleep a night.  That does not mean you should go to bed at 11:30 p.m. and get up at 6:30 a.m.  — it means seven hours of actual sleep. Some people may take 20 minutes or more to fall asleep.

Here are some of the negative physical and mental effects of inadequate sleep:
* Impairs our ability to think, handle stress, and maintain a healthy immune system.
* Ability to concentrate on a task diminishes and our memory becomes compromised.
* Decision-making abilities are reduced, as is the ability to use our problem-solving skills.
* People become irritable and short-tempered, both with themselves and with others.
* Stress and anxiety are leading causes of insomnia. This can lead to severe anxiety disorders and depression … the very things that can keep you from getting adequate sleep in the first place.
* Muscle strength and endurance decrease, tiring you out quicker.
* Glucose metabolism is lowered, which means your food is not turned into energy as quickly, making you more tired.

As you can see, all the great benefits of eating well and exercising regularly are erased if you do not get adequate sleep.  Not only that, but you can become unhealthy very quickly if you are chronically not getting enough sleep.