Looking Beyond Your Diet to Find Holistic Health
This is a sponsored guest post.
When it comes to holistic health, most of the focus is on the foods you eat. While having a wholesome diet is certainly important, there’s much more you can do to stay healthy besides avoiding processed foods. If you want to truly commit to holistic health, you need to look beyond your diet and consider your lifestyle and environment. Here are some of the best ways you can start living a healthier life today.
Sleep More
Image via Flickr by jawcey.
One of the biggest things you can do to improve your health is making sure you get enough rest each night. When you’re running low on sleep, it can affect multiple areas of your life in a negative way. And if your body is continually deprived of sufficient rest, your health will start to suffer. While eight hours of sleep is a good goal, you may feel fine after only seven hours of sleep or discover that you need nine hours to really feel rested.
To make sure you’re taking care of your sleep health, create a bedtime routine that’ll help you wind down and ensure that you’re getting to bed in time to get enough shuteye. You should also avoid screen time before bed since the light from your screens can affect your sleep hormone production.
Reduce Stress
Stress is one factor that can make it difficult to get enough rest. Feeling anxious, stressed, or overwhelmed isn’t good for your general well-being, so it’s important to find simple things you can do throughout the day to stay centered.
Deep breathing exercises can be very helpful for reducing stress hormone levels. You can also try other stress relief exercises, like create a gratitude journal, soak in a warm bath, or practice meditation. Remember that overcommitting yourself can be a major contributing factor to stress, so try to recognize when you need to step back from accepting a project or saying no to a request from someone.
Breathe Cleaner Air
When pollutants and particles penetrate the air in your home, it can diminish your overall health without you even noticing. Respiratory conditions, like allergies, asthma, emphysema, and lung disease, can all be exacerbated by poor air quality, so it’s important to do what you can to breathe cleaner air. You can start by upgrading to high-efficiency air filters and marking filter replacements on your calendar, so you don’t forget to swap them out when necessary.
In addition, make sure you contact a local HVAC company to evaluate your current ductwork and equipment. You may need to add UV lights in your ductwork to reduce bacteria growth or install an advanced air purification system for improved filtration.
Improve Your Posture
It doesn’t seem like posture should have that big of an impact on your health beyond your spine alignment. However, some research has shown that good posture can actually boost your brain activity. In addition, sitting upright with your shoulders back and your spine aligned can help you feel less fatigued and more enthusiastic. It’s a great way to improve your outlook and productivity with one simple step. If you’re suffering from back pain, you might find that maintaining good posture helps alleviate some of your discomfort, as it strengthens your back muscles.
Get Moving
In addition to a wholesome diet, your body needs exercise to stay in good health. If you’re only eating healthy foods but just sitting in a chair all day, your body will suffer. It’s important to find ways to get moving, even if the idea of starting a full workout routine seems daunting.
Start simple by going for a brisk walk every day. Eventually, you can work your way up to a jog or run to improve your cardiovascular health. To strengthen your muscles, you can try bodyweight training at home and as a bonus, equipment isn’t required. Just start with a few minutes each day. You can slowly increase the time as you feel
comfortable, but ultimately, you should try to get at least a half hour of cardiovascular exercise or strength training each day.
Ready to take your holistic health to the next level? Use these tips to improve your overall quality of life in ways beyond your diet.
Hi there! I am Emily Evert, the owner of Emily Reviews. I am 25 and live in a small town in Michigan with my boyfriend Ryan and our two pugs. I have a large family and I adore my nieces and nephews. I am a calorie counter who loves soda. I budget to save money so I can spend it on my dogs. I love reading memoirs, and learning about child development and psychology. I love watching The Game of Thrones, Teen Mom, Sister Wives and Veep. I like listening to Jason Isbell, John Prine, Kris Kristofferson and Blue October. I created Emily Reviews as a creative outlet to share my life and the products that I love with others.
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