Coming out of a period where I struggled with bad health it feels slightly strange to write an article about the benefits of living a healthy lifestyle. The reasons I find it strange is that the benefits of a healthy lifestyle should be obvious to everyone, aren’t they? Surely we all know that having a healthy lifestyle brings extraordinary benefits, like lots of energy, good mental health, healthy weight, and strengthened defences against disease and illness. Yet as so few actually practice keeping a healthy lifestyle it is obviously important to put in front of them the key benefits.
One thing I know for sure is good health is not something you can buy over-the-counter. There is no magical pill you can take that will deliver to you brilliant health. The only way of doing it is to adopt a healthy lifestyle including doing physical activity on a regular basis, good nutrition and rest and relaxation in order to exist at optimum level.
“Life is not merely being alive, but being well.” Marcus Valerius Martialis
It may not be easy to adopt and then sustain a healthy lifestyle but the value of doing so will be significant as there are countless benefits associated with living a healthy lifestyle. Let me give you some examples.
Improved Energy
One of the benefits of living a healthy lifestyle is the increased amount of energy. When you eat a healthy diet including whole grains, lean meats, low-fat dairy products, and fruits and vegetables, your body has the fuel that it needs to manage your energy level. Having more energy is so important because it enables you to do so much more and I know everyone of us can testify to how much better it feels being fully of energy rather than feeling lethargic and empty.
Good Mental Health
Another of the many benefits of living a healthy lifestyle is that it’s good for our mental health. There is evidence showing that good mental health is very much supported by having a healthy lifestyle. So things like a lack of self esteem, depression, anxiety, negative state if mind can be reduced by eating right and exercising.
Improved Sleep
A good nights uninterrupted sleep is another benefit of living a healthy lifestyle. A sound night sleep is extremely important to both our and body. Good sleep is made possible from living a healthy lifestyle. The number of people who wake up multiple times during the night as well as those that struggle to fall asleep at all would be dramatically reduced by improvements in people’s lifestyle.
Healthy Weight
The next of many benefits of living a healthy lifestyle is of course maintaining a healthy weight. If you’re overweight or obese, losing weight can reduce your risk of some potentially serious health problems. While maintaining a healthy weight is important for health. In addition to lowering the risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and high blood pressure, it can also lower the risk of many different illnesses.
Protect Against Illness
A healthy lifestyle can help prevent certain health conditions—such as heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure and cardiovascular diseases. Also it is known that regular physical activity and proper diet can help you prevent or manage a wide range of other health problems, including metabolic syndrome, diabetes, depression, certain types of cancer, and arthritis. By embracing a lifestyle filled with good health and fitness, the risk of contracting several diseases can be greatly reduced. Let me demonstrate this by sharing some statistics with you.
An overweight person can:
- Cut their risk of heart disease by up to 25%,
- Reduce their risk of a heart attack by 29%,
- Reduce their risk of diabetes by up to 64%,
- Reduce their risk of having high cholesterol by 33%,
- Reduce their risk of dying from any cause by 16%,
- Reduce their risk of asthma by 30%,
- Reduce their risk of stomach cancer by 10%,
- Reduce their risk of gallstones by 60%,
- Cut their risk of osteoarthritis by 12%, reduce their risk of esophageal cancer by 55%, and cut their risk of having high blood pressure by 44%.
Longer Life
When you practice a healthy lifestyle, you boost your chances of a longer life. This really should require no explanation. A person with a good diet, exercising regularly, sleeping well, relaxed and positive, who doesn’t smoke or drink alcohol will statistically ling longer than someone who doesn’t.
You Can Do So Much More
So you want to be able to keep up with your kids or grandkids, take long walks in the countryside, not feel tired so early in the evening so you can do so much more, well a healthy lifestyle is going to enable you to do so.
You’re Proving To Yourself You Can
Adopting a healthy lifestyle isn’t easy. In fact its hard. Hence most fail to do so. If you can not only establish a healthy lifestyle for yourself but also maintain it, you’re proving to yourself that you really can achieve anything you put your mind to. Achieving a good and well-balanced lifestyle is a lifelong effort that must include striving towards achieving good physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health.
So I think it should be obvious to anyone reading this that there are incredibly positive benefits to living life with a healthy lifestyle.
“Without health, life is not life; it is only a state of languor and suffering.” Francois Rabelais
What other benefits appeal to you, please comment below.
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