Feel Happier and Healthier in Only One Day
Instead of giving you a list of tips that will merely just be read, this is a more simple and easy to follow guide to help you to get into the best shape of your life. This guide will help you to make small changes in your day to day life that will improve your quality of life, leaving you happier and healthier than ever before. A lot of the tips found within the guide might have the added bonus of helping you to lose weight, but the main goal is to get your body functioning the way it’s supposed to. With a properly functioning body, your mind will relax and you will start to feel happier. Follow this simple guide, and you’ll feel a difference in health and mood in just one day.
5 SIMPLE CHANGES FOR BETTER LIVING
1. START THE DAY RIGHT
Instead of rushing through your morning routine, take your time. This will help decrease stress and tension and have you ready to take on the day. Rather than bolting out of bed when your alarm first goes off, wake yourself up gently. Doing this sets up your day to be more peaceful, and less stressful. Change your alarm from a loud, harsh tone to something softer that can wake you up without scaring you. Try setting your alarm to go off ten minutes before you actually need to be out of bed. This allows you to wake up at your own pace and prepare your mind for the day.
As cliché as it sounds, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Breakfast gets your metabolism back up and running after the period of fasting your body went through while asleep. Kick-starting your metabolism helps you to burn calories throughout the day and gives you energy so that you can start the day. If you don’t get the energy you need in the morning, your body will try to overcompensate later in the day, causing you to over eat in attempt to gain energy.
Drinking hot water in the morning is another way to kick-start metabolism, as it serves as a kind of shock to the system. Another easy way to feel healthier is to drink green tea. Coffee isn’t bad for you, but it doesn’t provide any real benefits to your body. Green Tea is full of antioxidants and nutrients that have many benefits for the body. It improves brain function, is great for fat loss, and lowers the risk of cancer.
2. A LITTLE EXERCISE, GOES A LONG WAY
Light, simple exercise is a great way to relieve stress and depression. A great thing about exercise is that you don’t need to do intense or strenuous workouts to get results. Light exercise like walking, hiking on a nature trail, or even doing chores around the house allows your body to burn energy, working through all you’ve stored up through sleep and food. Exercise is proven to improve your mood, as it floods your brain with chemicals that make you feel happy and relaxed. Studies have also shown that exercise helps with long-term depression. Taking a short walk every day can be life changing.
Getting some exercise helps you sleep better, and you definitely need sleep. Some people will claim that they can operate only having four to six hours of sleep every night. However, research from WebMD shows that adults who get less than seven hours of sleep in one night have more difficulty concentrating, and suffer from more mood problems than the people who get seven to nine hours of sleep.
3.TWEAK YOUR EATING HABITS
You don’t have to cut all the tasty, “guilty-pleasure” foods out of your diet in order to feel healthy. Good food makes us happy, so don’t get rid of it, just try to work more healthy foods into your diet. When you can, substitute a light option. When you eat a meal, eat the vegetables first so that you don’t fill up on the unhealthy foods before getting the benefits that your body needs. This is a simple way to control portion size, because you fill up on the good stuff, so you can’t eat too much of the bad.. You don’t have stop eating candy bars, just remember, everything is good in moderation.
Snacking on healthy snacks throughout the day has many benefits. People who get cravings or the “munchies” are able to soothe that craving with a healthy option. Snacking keeps your metabolism running, and it prevents you from overeating at meals, when the psychological hunger that comes from not eating for several hours overwhelms the physical one.
Drinking water is really important. Staying well hydrated prevents bloating, which in turn lets you lose weight with no work at all. According to WebMD, drinking 17 ounces of water speeds up your metabolism 30% within ten minutes of drinking. Water helps your body run like a well-oiled machine. If you find yourself feeling thirsty, drink water, not soda. Feeling thirsty is your body’s way of telling you you’re dehydrated, and soda won’t really make you less thirsty. Hydration prevents headaches, and is another way to prevent overeating.
People tend to make plans surrounding a meal or getting drinks – they have dinner together, have a lunch meeting, or maybe just get together for coffee. Try making plans with your friends and family that doesn’t involve food. Instead, try hanging out at the mall or walking outside, maybe playing a board game or watching a movie together. This cuts down on mindless eating, and leads to better interaction, as you’re not focused on whatever you’re eating or drinking.
Switch from full calorie OJ or Apple juice to a light version. That’s almost five pounds a year that you aren’t going to gain. You can also switch from sweet tea to a cup of green or black tea, which can help you lose almost 15 pounds a year. Instead of Fat-free yogurt, see if the grocery store has fat-free lite, that can cut up to ten pounds a year.
Take some vitamins. Vitamins C is a fantastic supplement to add to your day. Not only does it boost your immune system, it also helps reduce the physical and psychological effects stress has on people. It reduces the amount of stress you feel under pressure, as well as helping you to recover faster from stress. Vitamin D is also important to your diet. Known as the “Sunshine Vitamin,” Vitamin D is known as a good supplement for strong bones, but it also is capable of easing depression. Almost a quarter of the United States’ population is vitamin D deficient, so you could be too. Just be careful to not take too much, as it can have negative side effects.
You should also try to balance carbs and proteins in your diet. A simple rule of thumb to keep in mind is that carbohydrates relax you, as opposed to protein which gives you energy. From there you can make your own decisions as to what you want to eat, and how it will affect you.
4. RELAX YOUR ENVIRONMENT
Get rid of clutter. Clutter is distracting and makes you live with a lot more stress. It also makes it hard to find things. Take any chance you can get to simplify your life and your environment. When you’re cleaning up, think of the last time you used something, looked at it , or even thought about it – if you can’t remember, or it’s been more than a month, consider getting rid of it. Simplifying your surroundings is a good way to relieve subconscious stress. This doesn’t require a hard-core clean out. Just try to de-clutter small areas like drawers, closets or desk spaces frequently, instead of cleaning the entire area every once and awhile.
Scents in your environment also affect your mood, so surround yourself with good, relaxing smells to soothe your body might help to improve your living. If you don’t want to buy essential oils, or a plug in air freshener, a cheaper solution is to simmer a pot of water and add cinnamon sticks, orange peel and cloves. Bad odors are distracting and can affect you physically and mentally. So try to remove the source or set out bowls of baking soda or vinegar to absorb the odors
Listen to music. If there is such a thing as a magic mood-improver, it’s music. Different types of music affect your mood, upbeat music changes the signals in your brain, making you feel more energized. Calmer music will relax your mind and body. Music distracts the brain from pain and releases endorphins that counteract it. Listening to music relaxes the body by slowing your breathing and heart rate and by lowering blood pressure. It has also been proven that music improves memory, concentration and literacy skills. Listening to music can help you fall asleep, improve your mood, and reduce the effects of depression.
5. TAKE SOME TIME FOR YOU
Make some time every day for relaxation. Try to get some time to just be by yourself, and take a breath away from the chaos of the day. Constant stimulation is hard on the brain, and sometimes it needs a break.
If the weather isn’t bad, try to get outside and get some fresh air. It wakes up your brain and brings fresh oxygen to the system, the air of an A/C can get stale after a while. Sunlight is also proven to ease the symptoms of depression. If you can’t get outside or the weather isn’t good, try getting a sunlamp.
As cheesy as it sound, try to laugh every day. Research shows that laughter activates an area of the brain called the nucleus accumbens. This part of the brain is involved in pleasurable feelings – the same kind of feelings people get when they make money or take some kind of recreational drug. The more you laugh, the more blood flows to that area and the better you feel. Laughter helps reduce mental tension, and increases your energy, which helps you to stay focused and get more done. Both sides of your brain are stimulated when you laugh, which encourages clarity, creativity, and your ability to problem solve. So taking a small break to watch a funny video on youtube or even just look at silly pictures on the internet can increase your productivity.
Find a creative outlet – it can be a coloring book or even just doodling. As long as you find some way to release tensions it could be anything that gets your creativity going. Creating any form of art encourages your creative thinking, and encourages problem solving by allowing you to create your own solutions. When you draw or color or paint or make a collage, you are thinking in a different way than you normally do. This stimulates your brain to grow new neurons, and releases endorphins that relieve stress. Journaling is another valuable outlet that allows you to release pent up thoughts and emotions, allowing you to let go of problems of the day, and be cleansed for tomorrow.
All in all, it’s the little things you do that can make all the difference. Just make these little changes throughout your week, and you’ll find yourself feeling happier and healthier, relieved of stress and able to accomplish more than you ever thought you could. It’s just that easy
Courtesy of Defendyourhealthcare.us
