We’ll be starting a healthy living series on 12 steps to a healthier life and will explain each step in this post. Make sure you don’t miss any of the Healthy Living posts! So let’s start.
What is Healthy living? Well, it’s not, eat your fruits and vegetables and everything will be fine. It encompasses a whole lot more than that. Quite simply, Healthy Living is really about making a commitment to adopt Healthy behaviour. It is about making Healthy choices everyday, healthy choices that keep us healthy, physically, mentally and spiritually. Too many of us push the limits and end up paying health consequences, so keep a date with us every week right here, we’ll be breaking down 12 steps to a Healthier life, drop your questions, comments, anything you need more clarification on, get in on the conversation.
Step 1
Get more Rest
What’s more important to good health: nutrition, exercise or getting good sleep? The truth is that all three affect each other, doing one without the other will not produce the good health that you need.
Of the three however, Sleep tends to get a bad rap. People are either too busy to take a much needed nap or too stuck on their favourite lat night show to know when to call it a day. What we should be doing is getting around 8 hours quality sleep at night, some a bit more, some a bit less, to feel alert and at our best each day.
Effects of lack of Sleep
- Early studies have linked lack of sleep to both colorectal and aggressive breast cancer.
- Multiple studies have suggested a relationship between chronic sleep deprivation and increased obesity risk.
- Evidence from some studies suggests that lack of sleep may harm men’s sperm. Men who slept poorly had lower sperm counts and fewer sperm formed correctly compared to men that slept better.
- Regular poor sleep puts you at risk of heart disease and diabetes and it shortens your life expectancy.
Benefits of Good Sleep
- Sleep boosts immunity.
- Sleep can slim you: its believed that sleep-deprived people have reduced levels of leptin (chemical that you feel full) and increases ghrelin ( the hunger-stimulating hormone).
- Sleep boosts your mental well-being.
- Sleep increases sex drive: research shows that men and women who don’t get enough quality sleep have lower libidos and less interest in sex.
- Sleep prevents diabetes: studies suggest that missing out on deep sleep may lead to type 2 diabetes by changing the way the body processes glucose.
- Sleep wards off heart disease: long standing sleep deprivation seems to be associated with increased heart rate, an increase in blood pressure and higher levels of certain chemicals linked with inflammation, which may put extra strain on the heart.
So do yourself a favour, close your computer, turn off your phone and the TV. Plan ahead to get in bed and get more sleep, you won’t regret it.
