Starting from the understanding that prevention is better than cure, here are a few simple habits that can help you stay healthy for longer.
- Keep moving, ie, keep yourself active. This does not mean running almost beyond what your cardiovascular system can take. Just a 30 minutes “walk” almost every day of the week should be enough.
- Get enough Sleep. Try to get at least 7h of sleep every night. This will help you with your performance, and that sounds sort of obvious to many of us at least, but what is less obvious is that it also has a direct correlation with keeping a healthy immune system.
- Eat well. The human body is like an advanced machine, which is somehow active all the time (even while you sleep), and in the process consumes energy and produces waste.
- Breath enough fresh air.
- Manage and Reduce Stress, particularly chronic stress.
- Plan Regular Check-ups.
Let’s briefly touch on each of the habits mentioned above.
1. Keeping Yourself Active
There has been quite a bit of research done on the health benefits of exercise in general, and particularly on the correlation between intensity of exercise and health effects. In the article “The multifaceted benefits of walking for healthy aging: from Blue Zones to molecular mechanisms“, published on July 2023, the authors point out “numerous health benefits” of physical activity with different degrees of intensity. According to the authors, walking reduces the risk (or severity) of a number of cardiovascular diseases, as well as the risk of type 2 diabetes, dementia, and other medical conditions.
More recently the World Health Organization, in an online publication, stresses that “physical inactivity puts adults at greater risk of cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks and strokes, type 2 diabetes, dementia and cancers such as breast and colon.”
Another recent study, for a specific segment of the population, also correlates longevity with physical activity, and suggests that people could add extra years to their life by just consistently reaching a certain level of physical activity.
2. Get Enough Sleep
Research on sleep quality and sleep monitoring has been able to associate insufficient sleep (in quality and quantity) with several chronic medical conditions and with increased mortality.
A recent research involving more than 6000 participants, uses data from wearable devices to associate sleep patterns and stages with health outcomes, and explicitly shows a link between certain sleep related variables and medical conditions such as hypertension, obesity, atrial fibrillation, and other.
3. Eat well
The human body is very dynamic, to the point that it is not too far fetched to say we are someone different every day. Metabolic processes continuously occur in our body, and some consume and other release energy and substances.
4. Breath enough fresh air
As we the food we consume, the quality of the air we breath also has a very important impact on our health.
5. Manage and Reduce Stress
Stress is often either a hidden or an underestimated enemy. Many people do not realize the impact it has in their health.
6.Plan Regular Check-ups
Even if we do all we can to stay healthy, there are so many variables that are out of our control, such as genetic factors, germs, radiations, and other, that we do not have the certainty that everything is fine. Everything could just look fine, and yet a dangerous illness could be developing but in its early stages it might not result in symptoms.
References
- Ungvari, Z., Fazekas-Pongor, V., Csiszar, A. et al. The multifaceted benefits of walking for healthy aging: from Blue Zones to molecular mechanisms. GeroScience 45, 3211–3239 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11357-023-00873-8.
- World Health Organization (WHO) News release, published 26 June 2024, https://www.who.int/news/item/26-06-2024-nearly-1.8-billion-adults-at-risk-of-disease-from-not-doing-enough-physical-activity
- Veerman, L., et al. (2024). Physical activity and life expectancy: a life-table analysis. British Journal of Sports Medicine. https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/10/07/bjsports-2024-108125
- Zheng, N.S., Annis, J., Master, H. et al. Sleep patterns and risk of chronic disease as measured by long-term monitoring with commercial wearable devices in the All of Us Research Program. Nat Med 30, 2648–2656 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-024-03155-8
To be continued… :-).