Do you want to live longer? Perhaps you’re primarily concerned with adding quality to the years you have remaining. Preventative care offers a way to improve your chances of both.
Preventative care entails engaging in routine activities that bolster your overall health. It also means indulging in harmful behaviors in moderation, if at all. If longevity is your goal, you need to care for your body and your mind.
1. Prepping Your Meals
Supplements can play an essential role in maintaining your health. Even though many Americans carry excess weight, they nevertheless develop nutritional deficiencies due to reliance on processed, additive-laden meals. Plus, the evidence supporting claims that these substances ward off diseases shows mixed results. While supplementation did decrease cancer risk, it did not do the same for heart disease.
Instead, strive to improve your diet by prepping meals on your days off. Chop up hearty vegetables like carrots or radishes, so that they’re easy to toss in the salad bowl or wok for a meal. Make nutritious frozen burritos that you can freeze and grab-and-go during the workweek for lunch. Filling half your plate with fruits and veggies in every hue ensures you consume a full array of phytonutrients.
2. Caring for Your Teeth
You might not associate your teeth with anything but chewing. However, they’re critical to your overall health. Research confirms that cavity buildup increases the risk of heart disease and stroke contraction. Scientists have discovered that the bacteria in your mouth can cause inflammation in your brain as well, increasing your dementia risk.
Take care to brush twice daily and floss. See your dentist regularly, as they can detect and correct cavities before they risk the painful stage.
3. Getting Regular Physical Exercise
Did you know that men and women in their 70s can have the heart and muscular fitness of someone in their 40s through regular activity? Those who exercise regularly have a “biological age” — what some consider your “true” age — nine years younger than those who do not. You don’t have to train for a triathlon. Even 15 minutes of movement daily provides some benefits, although ideally, you should strive for 30 minutes most days per week.
4. Quitting Smoking
Smoking can make your skin look like a leather handbag well before you reach retirement age. Worse, it increases your risk of several types of cancer, not only of the lungs. Tobacco smoke contains 250 known carcinogens — and your secondhand smoke impacts those around you. You can find tons of free government resources to help. If you’re fortunate enough to have health insurance coverage, reach out. Medications can make quitting less unpleasant.
5. Cutting Down on Alcohol Use
You may have heard that a glass of wine is healthy, and there is merit to that claim. However, overindulgence in the drink — more than one lowly alcoholic beverage daily for women — causes adverse health effects. Since the polyphenols in red wine give it the beneficial effects, why not opt for a beverage that has the right stuff without the hangover? You can reap many of the same benefits from drinking tea — no headache required.
6. Adopting Positive Self-Soothing Behaviors
Your mind is an organ, too, and keeping it healthy bolsters longevity. This process entails finding positive ways to manage stress. If, after a long day, all you can think of is heading to happy hour, you could shave years off your life.
Instead, cultivate positive self-soothing behaviors. Make a list of healthy activities that calm you. It might look something like this.
- Go for a walk: Fresh air and exercise both boost moods.
- Take a relaxing bath: Visualize your stress floating away into the water.
- Draw or read: Both provide surcease from challenging emotions until you’re ready to process them.
7. Getting Adequate Sleep
Finally, if you’re running on zero Zzzs, you put yourself at a higher risk of death from accidents. Up to 6,000 fatal crashes occur each year as a result of drowsy driving. Plus, inadequate rest makes you prone to making mistakes at work, which can amp up your stress levels. Strive to make your bedroom a distraction-free oasis by reserving it for sleep and sex only. Keep electronics and work out of this space.
Increase the Quantity — and Quality — of Your Life
Simple preventative care can add years to your life. More importantly, it keeps you healthy, meaning you suck more quality out of every day. Here’s to increased longevity and well-being!
Adequate sleep and constant exercises are very important. Sometimes we get caught up in life’s struggle that we forget to rest. Forgetting that it is only healthy and living people work.