Lifestyle Choices: Five Key Areas to Support Health

Healthy lifestyle is the best defense against the plagues of modern life, its chronic degenerative diseases, inflammatory conditions, and emotional stresses. We all know the basic tenets of healthy lifestyle, but do we partake? And if not, are there simple changes that can add benefit?

To address healthy lifestyle, I have been and remain a promoter of addressing five areas daily: exercise including flexibility, diet including hydration, mental attitude including reflection, relationships, and sleep. That said, too many people are put off thinking they have to be fitness phenoms to be in shape, or have family and belong to social clubs to have relationships, or get home delivery meals to eat healthy, etc. None of that is true. Creating a healthy lifestyle can be quick and easy. We can start small and stay there or build up as time and energy permit. To demonstrate, I will share my very low commitment routine and areas I need to improve. I hope to do more at some point, but for right now it is all I can handle, and the most important part is that these considerations are a habitual part of my daily life.

Physical Activity and Flexibility

I do not exercise, I hate it. When my Dr. urges me to undertake some exercise routine, I tell him I’d rather die, and he usually quips back, “And so you shall!”. I have always been extremely low energy, even as a child I never wanted to do anything athletic. That being said, while I do not engage in any organized exercise, I do, and always have, engaged in physical work. I have no car and live in the city, so walk everywhere I go, often loaded up like a pack mule such as when returning from the farmer’s market. At work, while everyone else stands around waiting for the elevator, I take the stairs. Further, I start my days off with a long walk to get my blood moving, reflect on the prior day, and plan out the present day. My point is, there are ways to exercise without actually exercising. Walking is easy and a great way to maintain some physicality with benefits of weight control as well as reduced risk of hypertension and cardiovascular disease (Murtagh et al., 2010). It doesn’t take a lot; studies have shown that any amount is beneficial (Omura et al., 2019). Additionally, I try to maintain flexibility by engaging in five to ten minutes of Qigong every morning. In addition to being meditative and relaxing, Qigong has been found to be beneficial to controlling blood pressure (Liu et al., 2020). I also dance frequently. Simple, spur of the moment, no chance to build up dread or make excuses not to go to the gym, that’s my exercise style. As a senior, what I am lacking and need to improve on is weight and resistance training to maintain muscle condition. Just two weight training sessions per week are typically enough to maintain muscle (Spiering et al., 2021).

Dietary Habits and Hydration

My dietary habits are excellent, although, I could eat out less. For home use, I buy only organic, mostly from the farmers market, I cook many of my own meals so I can control the ingredients, I am careful to avoid GMOs, added chemicals, most factory foods, and refined vegetable oils. Mondays, I prep enough for the work week, no recipes, just very simple, fresh, and balanced meals. I aliquot it all in small single serving jars to pack into my icepack cooled thermal lunch bag. This controls ingredients and portion size. I take a couple of thermoses filled with cold filtered water and a third with herbal tea each work day, so I am well hydrated at work. I make sure that I have three to four servings of fresh fruits or vegetables each day as well as plenty of protein. I try to maintain a good balance of protein, carbs, and fat at each meal and snack. But here is where I need to improve: I used to track every meal on a nutrition tracking app; I fell off that wagon and need to get back on. Tracking on an app in real time is very important for several reasons. One is that studies have shown that we cannot rely on recall (Carter, 2021). Secondly, using the app helps one be mindful while they are eating. Mindfulness during eating helps one feel nourished and satiated (Carter, 2021). Tracking helps one to see which foods have a positive effect and those with a negative effect, as well as to reveal diversity or lack thereof (Marino, 2012). Another great reason for a nutrition tracking app is that seniors have different dietary needs than younger people. We need less calories and often cannot handle much food since digestive function declines with age, thus, we need to make every bite count towards optimizing nutrition (Carrera, 2012; Laurence, 2021; Nigam & Knight, 2017; Remond et al., 2015). An app that tracks both macro- and micro-nutrients would be helpful. Another area I need to work on is fasting after two p.m. Again, as a senior, I have insufficient stomach acid later in the day, so eating after work is problematic and interferes with sleep. While my willpower is stellar earlier in the day, studies have shown that after a day of stress and decision making, our willpower becomes exhausted which is why evening is the time most people pig out, me included (Gulamali, 2017). Additionally, intermittent fasting, such as a 14-hour gap between dinner and breakfast, is great for weight control. Further, reduction of food intake as during intermittent fasting, is reportedly one way to reduce telomere loss and thus, prolong lifespan (Columbia University Irving Medical Center, 2021; González-Estévez & Flores, 2020).

Mental Attitude and Reflection

The adage, “happiness is a choice” is somewhat true. I try to be careful about my thoughts and to find things throughout the day to be grateful for. I could improve by limiting perusal of my Twitter feed to one day a week, as it is anxiety producing. The first step in shaping one’s mental attitude is to be aware of negative thoughts and to stop and ask, “Is this really true?” (Moon, 2017). Most of the time the thoughts are not true or only partially true a fraction of time. And BTW, just because one sees it in a meme, does not mean it is actually accurate. Next, state what is true, reframe the belief in a more accurate tone. Lastly, think of a way to mitigate or improve the thought or the situation that generated the thought (Davis, 2022; InformedHealth.org., 2016). This cognitive behavioral therapy technique is helpful, but mostly I find that all I need is the first step, “Is this actually true?” (Moon, 2017). This awareness in the moment is key. Being mindful can generate the seeds of happiness: the sound of children laughing, birds singing, bees buzzing flowers, all these generate happiness if one hears them, but to hear them, one must check into the present, be mindful. Daily reflection is also beneficial to attitude. Reflection helps us assess what is working in each area of one’s life and what is not; what is promoting the way one wants to feel and live and what is distracting or holding one back.

Relationships

I have a weak spot… relationships. Having good relationships with family, friends, or coworkers aids in creating a sense of support and belonging. When one does not have such, they may experience feelings of isolation and loneliness which contribute to lack of motivation and may result in malnutrition and lack of exercise (Remond et al., 2015; Wier 2018). Studies have shown that social relationships are important for long term health and survival. In fact, Holt-Lunstad et al. (2010) performed a meta-analysis of studies across 308,849 people over 7.5 years and found that, “…individuals with adequate social relationships have a 50% greater likelihood of survival compared to those with poor or insufficient social relationships.” They equated that benefit with quitting smoking! Further, research has found that familial relationships affect endocrine, immune, and nervous system health (Uchino & Way, 2017). While happy childhoods lead to healthier lives, it is felt the reverse is also true. So, does this mean that those of us with an unhappy childhood, no family, few friends that are only rarely seen, are doomed? Nope, there are ways to mitigate these seeming disadvantages.

Family Relationships

This is one time I can commend social media and all the new communication technology. Social media and face-to-face apps are great ways to stay connected to far away family and friends, and have the added benefit of being easy to use. I have celebrated New Year’s Eve on Skype even toasting at midnight by tapping our glasses to the camera lens, attended wine parties on Zoom, and Face-Timed with friends with iPhones. Facebook is great for staying abreast of the happenings in family member’s lives, for me, my niece and grand nephews. It brings a lot of joy to watch them grow and engage in life. I can improve by being better about sending cards and making visits.

Work Relationships

I have very high standards for myself and everyone else, which is a problem. I try to be complimentary and helpful, but it is hard not to constantly feel frustrated. I should have realized this aspect of my personality and fostered a career choice wherein I could be my own boss and work by myself. As I am soon to retire, I am not greatly incentivized to address this. Rather, I am proposing to be switched to part time and just weekends to reduce my interactions. In the meantime, I have a pact with myself that every time I get frustrated and think a negative thought about a coworker, I find a positive to counter it. I also stop and thank the universe that in a post-covid world of marked employee shortages, I have any coworkers at all (Bailey, 2022).

Social Relationships

I love to be around super intelligent, informed people with open minds who can think critically for themselves rather than be seduced by group think. I love people who can challenge my thinking, educate me, pose counter arguments so well thought out and researched, that I consider changing my opinion. Those people are very rare. It is important to have connections as man is a social creature (Pietromonaco & Collins, 2017). To that end and since I could not find the first type of people, I focused on another love to share social bonding… I joined band fandoms and travel around, meeting up with the other fans for drinks, meals, waiting in line, and watching the shows. It has been great fun and has challenged me to learn languages and go places I never dreamed of. I do need to find another passion to build social relationships upon to facilitate my impending retirement finances, but the point is, I just needed to adjust my expectations of what my social relationships should look like, to build some.

Sleep

I have a pretty good sleep hygiene routine, but again, I could do better. I go to bed just shortly after I get home from work as I work long shifts and am usually exhausted. Instead of eating food and then going to bed, I should drink an herbal tea that facilitates sleep, such as chamomile or passionflower. If super hungry, I could nibble a melatonin rich food such as tart cherries or almonds. Alternatively, turkey contains tryptophan which is converted to serotonin and then to melatonin (Watson & Cherney, 2021). Sleep is critically important. Studies have shown numerous health issues due to poor sleep quality and duration. Detriments include increased susceptibility to stressors, pain, mood issues, poor cognitive and memory functioning, behavioral issues, hypertension, obesity, cardiovascular disease, etc. (Medic et al., 2017). Another reason for exercise, plenty of physicality during the day, helps tire one out. Good sleep hygiene includes avoiding stimulants, electronic devices, and food several hours before bed, darkening the room completely, maintaining coolness, and calming the mind before sleep (Watson & Cherney, 2021). The half hour or so before sleep is an excellent time to reflect, think about that which one is grateful for, and let all the stress of the day fade away.

TV shows have indoctrinated people as to what a normal healthy life should look like; the 1950s nuclear family. Many of us do not have that type of life, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t generate health promoting habits, attitudes, and relationships; we just have to go about it a bit differently. The number one factor is perception, our lives are as we perceive them to be. Our expectations should reflect our reality, we can then fine tune our radar to find possibilities in everyday life that promote happiness and a healthy lifestyle.

References

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