Fitness: The Guide To Staying Healthy

Chapter 5: Lifestyle Fitness, You Are What You Do, Too
Your lifestyle is the way that you live your life. Although each of these other elements that we’ve already talked about is very important parts of your lifestyle, they are not everything.
Each decision you make throughout the course of the day plays a role in your fitness. Unlike the other chapters, this one will be structured a bit different. Each of these lifestyle considerations is important and each offers a unique spin on the quality of life you will lead. Improve them, and physical fitness increases.
Smoking, Drinking And Drugs
Each of those three things, smoking, drinking and drugs, is a problem for your health and your ability to make it through the life you have. You probably already know the risks of what these things can do to your life, but you may not realize the extent at which it takes to improve them.
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For example, smoking will eat away at your lungs and will cause cancer. There are no ifs about it. It will cause cancer eventually in your lungs.
But, smoking is something that you can stop, even if it is one of the hardest things you will have to do. To improve your fitness, find a method to stop smoking and do it. You will find that your health increases, your energy increases, your stress levels DO go down and you can feel better about the life you are living.
When you quit early enough, your body can repair the damage that you have done to your lungs. This can only happen if you stop soon enough, though.
Drinking and drugs are just as bad. Each time that you consume too much alcohol that makes you drunk or you take illegal drugs, you destroy your body slowly and methodically. You kill brain cells, you put your life at risk and you destroy the organs in your body. Some damage can be fixed through healing over time, others can’t.
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To improve your lifestyle and to extend your life, you need to remove these problems from it. Smoking and drugs are simply a no no. Drinking alcohol isn’t nearly as bad for you when you drink it in moderation and only when you are drinking low concentrations of alcohol such as in wine rather than in hard liquor or beer.
Sleep
Do you sleep? No, we mean actually lying down and sleeping for 7 to 9 hours per night? Do you wake up rested? If not, then you aren’t getting the right amount of sleep for health. Your lifestyle fitness requires that you get quality sleep each night.
Why is sleep so important? There are actually several reasons. For one, sleep is the body’s time to relax and to recoup what it’s done all day. You need this time for your mind to. It’s the way that your mind works through problems. It’s the time that your body heals from the exertions of the day.
It’s a time to restart, refresh and give yourself the best chance at improving tomorrow.
Those that don’t get enough sleep are not capable of performing at their best physical or mental level. They aren’t able to improve the level at which they can function and they make bad mistakes. Stress hurts more, physical ailments hinder you more when you don’t get enough sleep.
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If you are having problems with sleeping, there are many ways that you can overcome them.
• Reducing stress levels during the day is helpful as is working out the stresses that you can’t get rid of.
• Try to go to sleep at the same time everyday and give yourself as much time as necessary to feel rested.
• Don’t do stimulating things before bed such as watching television or working on a project.
• Don’t eat before bed, at least two hours beforehand.
If you are facing problems with insomnia or are struggling to get to sleep, talk to your doctor about it. There may be an underlying medical condition that could be causing it.
While it used to be that there were only sleeping medications that were addicting, today there are many that are not like that which can offer you a night’s rest. Don’t use these unless your doctor has Okayed them for you, though!
Supplements
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Giving your body the nutrients that it needs to make it through the day is essential to your well being. But, even if you think that you can do this through the foods that you eat, you are probably still missing out.
Today’s foods often do not contain enough of the nutrients that your body needs to be in your best physical shape. While a diet that’s full of nutrient rich food should not be replaced, it sometimes needs additional supplementation to take it to the best level it can be at.
But, what do you take? First off, find a good quality multi vitamin and take that as directed. Multi vitamins are a good starting point because they provide a decent dose of supplements that just about everyone needs.