The Eight Most Important Lifestyle Tips To Live Healthy and Be Happy

Today, I want to focus on the big picture. I want to talk about the eight most important things in our life (in my opinion) that will affect our health and happiness.

These eight things will affect your lifestyle day in day out and in the long run, the outcome of your life.

Get these eight things right, or atleast try to do the best you can, and you’ll find yourself living a full and healthy life well into your older years.

 

The Eight Most Important Lifestyle Tips For a Full and Healthy Life

 

1. Sleep

Sleep is one of the most underrated lifestyle tips required for living a healthy life.

Society has encouraged us to sleep less so that we can do more and feel as though our life is important – even if we aren’t really doing that much more because we won’t be productive.

City workers work long hours and sleep 4-5 hours.

Entrepreneurs work long hours and sleep 4-5 hours.

Doctors work long hours – probably have the longest shifts.

We all pull through, with extravagant amounts of caffeine in the form of coffee and tea. But what is this doing to us? We are proud of the fact that we don’t sleep much – but is this healthy and will it affect us in the longer run?

When I don’t get my sleep, I have a foggy brain, I can’t do much and I’m very unproductive. Something doesn’t feel right.

SLEEP IS VERY IMPORTANT.

Why?

Because when we sleep, a chemical is released in our brain that clears out toxins. If these toxins are not cleared out, toxic protein plaques build up which can cause Alzheimer’s disease.

As if Alzheimer’s wasn’t bad enough, lack of sleep can also lead to:

• A weak immune system – affecting your ability to fight off other diseases
• Increased risk of stroke/ coronary heart disease
• Increased risk of cancer
• Inability to think – cognitive failure – a bit like what happens to me immediately when I don’t get sleep
• Forgetfulness and Alzheimer’s in the long run
• Men have diminished libido
• Increased weight
• Increased diabetes risk
• Poor skin condition i.e. more wrinkles, reduced elasticity

And from my experience, it can also cause migraines.

I urge you to get at least 7-8 hours of sleep everyday. Make it a priority.

 

2. Healthy Eating

You are what you eat. You know the saying. And there’s truth to it.

When you eat junk food, your body will feel sick. Your skin will break out, you won’t be productive, you won’t feel motivated and you’ll lack energy overall.

When you eat fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds and whole grain foods, you will feel different – much more energised. You’ll do your best work and live your best life when you eat well.

I am not going to outline what can go wrong when you don’t eat well because you could get every disease known to mankind if you don’t eat well.

A good healthy balanced diet will help you fight disease, keep your body in good shape and help you live healthier for a longer span.

 

3. Exercise

Exercise is just as important as eating well for a long and healthy life.

Back in the day, we used to get plenty of exercise via movement because work used to be more manual. Nowadays, we are seated at our computers and don’t move around much. It is therefore important to make an active effort to move more.

It’s great to see that there’s now a fitness movement, where more people are making an effort to be active.

Exercise is great for you because it keeps you in good physical shape. Exercising regularly ensures that you have a lower risk of:

• Heart disease
• Type 2 Diabetes
• Bowel & Breast cancer
• Osteoarthritis
• Depression
• Hip fracture
• Dementia

AND the most exciting thing to me is that there’s scientific evidence that exercising for atleast 30 minutes everyday can reduce your age by 10 years!! That’s right!

Aim to get atleast 150 minutes of exercise every week. In order for exercise to be beneficial, aim to get to a level where you are breathing faster and your heart rate increases.

 

4. Stress

Stress, the one thing we can’t live without.

Stress, as we know it today, is a chronic long term negative response to all the things going wrong in our lives (or anything that makes us uncomfortable).

However, stress wasn’t always a bad thing.

In the stone ages, a short term stress response would enable our body to jump into action incase of danger such as a lion wanting to eat us. All our energy would be directed to the fight or flee mechanism. It kept us alive and we are around today because of it.

So Kudos to stress. Today, short term stress responses can also be beneficial where you have a deadline or any incident that needs immediate action.

It becomes problematic when we start reacting to every small problem in our life. At that point, our body is constantly directing all our energy to the fight or flee mechanism which affects our health and lifestyle.

Stress can cause so many problems such as:

• Lack of sleep
• Headaches
• Depression
• Upset stomach
• Body ache
• Chest pain
• Weak immune system
• Cognitive failure
• Negativity
• Addiction
• Heart disease
• Obesity
• Skin and hair problems
• Sexual disfunction

You need to make an active effort to reduce the stress in your life. For things you can control, try to find solutions. For things you can’t control, you have to let them go.

Stress will never go away 100% unless you become a monk, but atleast making an effort to reduce it will benefit your overall health.

 

5. Meditation/Yoga

Meditation and Yoga are my favourite part of starting the day. There’s a certain way I feel when I’ve done these right.

My body feels stretched, my mind feels cool and refreshed.

I suddenly become more productive, I find solutions to problems and feel like I can tackle this day no matter what comes my way. I feel invincible.

Scientists are only now discovering the outstanding benefits of meditation, but these two practices -Yoga and Meditation – have been around for as long as we can remember. In Buddhism, in Hinduism, in Jainism, meditation has been one of the most basic practices.

We are now realising that meditation is important for good mental health because it:

• Reduces stress
• Reduces anxiety and depression
• Reduces negativity
• Increases greater understanding of the self, improving your confidence
• Improves your attention span
• Improves mental performance
• Increases positivity and kindness
• Could fight addictions such as alcohol addiction
• Improves sleep
• Could decrease blood pressure
• Keeps you present and enables good decision making

Make time everyday for atleast 10-20 minutes of meditation. It will change your life.

If you have more time, add yoga to the mix as well.

 

6. Purpose

Having a purpose in life will be game changing for your life and mental health.

Living for something worth living will make you feel alive, will motivate you and keep you going.

My purpose in life is to build my businesses and help people. I wake up everyday feeling happy, looking forward to my day and building on the work I’ve done to achieve my purpose. It keeps me happy and healthy.

Without a purpose, you will feel lost. A purpose could be anything, it could be work, it could be a loved one, it could be a goal – just something that you feel is worth living for.

Simply existing in life won’t be fulfilling enough, it will make you miserable and reduce your chance of living a healthy and happy life.

Ask yourself – what is your purpose in life? Is there something you want to live for?

 

7. Outdoors

Getting outdoors is very important for your mental wellbeing.

It’s not the same as exercising. You could be stuck in a building for 365 days and have a fully equipped gym where you exercise everyday – but you will feel completely different if you go for a trek or hike in the mountains – even if just for one day.

I don’t know what it is – but there’s something about being outdoors. Whether it is the fresh air or the micro-biota, I feel completely relaxed and refreshed when I go out for a walk/run as opposed to when I run in a gym.

Getting outdoors – whether it’s a walk in the park or a trek in the hills can benefit you because it:

• Reduces stress
• Strengthens immunity
• Improves focus
• Calms the mind
• Gets you that added exercise
• Improves memory
• Improves vision
• Helps you appreciate the greater beauty of life and be grateful

Aim to get out for a walk or run or hike whenever you can. I tend to go for a walk everyday and like to get away for the weekends when I can.

 

8. Social Life

A good social life can greatly benefit your health and happiness. Go to the blue zones and you’ll find that being social, spending time with loved ones greatly increases lifespan. In blue zones, many people live up to the age of 100 and beyond.

Whether it is hanging out with a friend, spending time with your family or loved one, make a conscious effort to meet up.

Spending time with your loved ones will:

• Make you feel loved and create a “good feeling” inside you increasing happiness
• Increase positivity
• Reduce depression
• Build self-esteem and confidence
• Reduce stress
• May improve skills and prevent mental decline
• Encourage learning as a team

It is important to note that you should spend time around those who make you feel good. Spending time around negative people (whether family or friends) may actually worsen your confidence and even increase your stress.

Seek out positive people who vouch for you and encourage you. Those people will add to your life. Spending time with positive people will benefit your health and happiness. This will help you live longer.