Lifestyle Factors on Health

Effects of lifestyle factors on healtheffects of lifestyle factors on health

It is important to understand that our everyday life choices such as: diet and exercise or lack of it; affects our life in the long-run.  In order to have control over your own health – you need to have more of positive choices rather than negative ones and in this article we will outline its benefits and how it can make your life easier.

Benefits of balanced diet and nutrition

Weight control – for people who have obesity problems, balanced diet could help to gain control over the calorie intake which would allow them to lose weight effectively.  Combine this with regular cardiovascular exercise and you will enjoy the results and normal BMI, also with decreased risk of heart disease in short period of time.

Well-being – in general healthy eating and detoxification will cleanse your body and regenerate vital functions to normal level such as heart ability to circulate blood in the body and cholesterol level.  This will increase delivery of oxygen and elimination of harmful toxins, hormones and other toxic waste that can be obtained from processed foods, certain meat and milk (whereas animals are injected with hormones to grow faster and or produce milk) and genetically modified foods.

Energy boost – because your body will be free from continuous inflammation caused from processed and unhealthy greasy foods, it will have ability to regenerate very quickly after exercise or intense workout.  Also you will have more energy as your body will not need to use it for continuous cleansing of itself, so you could use it for more exercise!

Food will taste better – after eating crisps sprinkled with chemicals such as E621 (Monosodium glutamate) which is a flavour enchanter that has damaging effect to brain and drinking soda filled enormous amount of sugar or diet soda filled with aspartame – a healthy food usually does not taste so good…  But when you cease to consume these food-like products, your taste buds on tongue regenerate and brains will get used to how good – real food tastes like and it will be healthy and enjoyable experience.

Effects of poor diet

If you are unable to manage your diet and continue to consume foods that are high in saturated fats, your chance of getting a heart disease such as: stroke, heart attack or cardiac arrest – increases significantly. Dependent upon the amount of fats you consume and their quality (whether it is saturated – bad cholesterol that is hard to break down for body or unsaturated fats that breaks down quite easily).  Both of fatty acids are needed, but because of our modern lifestyle we are exposed to saturated fat more often (from fried greasy foods) than unsaturated fats (from avocado, nuts, seeds and other nature gifts).  For younger individuals this may not be a problem, but for all individuals that suffer from high level of obesity and still consume products high in saturated fats will become an issue sooner or later.

When body has to deal with increased amount of toxicity it gives more energy than it supposed to give and vital body functions such as immune system suffers.  Because of that – we are more vulnerable to diseases starting from simple flu to more serious chronic diseases like cancer.

All these negative factors will have effect on your personal life as it can lead from difficulties to perform fitness related activities to doctor visits…

Effects of identified lifestyle factors

Benefits of physical activity and recommendations

Regular exercise can reduce the risk of getting illness or chronic disease to certain level by itself, but if combined with healthy diet and or lifestyle your well-being will increase significantly.  There are different types of exercise to reach different goals, but one major types of exercises are that train cardiovascular system. It helps to maintain healthy blood system, so that it’s capable to deliver enough oxygen, food and nutrients to muscles and organs, keeps balanced cholesterol level, increases efficiency to detoxify blood and body.

Government recommendations are at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity (cycling, fast walking) or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise (running, football, basketball) per week alongside with strength exercises that work all the major muscles (legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders and arms).

Effects of lack of exercise

Lack of exercise can not only lead to various diseases, but it can also lead to muscle atrophy.  Atrophy is a state of a muscle when it does not receive enough stress (exercise), so in result of that it not only stops growing, but starts to decrease and you become weaker.  Atrophy can be dealt with if small amounts of exercise are introduced and they increase gradually, but it can leave its traces behind if it was quite severe such as cracks in muscle tissue.  Atrophy makes muscles so weak that it is really easy to obtain an injury even when lifting light weights.  This illness is quite rare, but can occur if person does not receive enough nutrients and does not exercise – or just do not exercise and lay down or sit all day.  Fact: this illness is big issue for astronauts, as in space there is no pressure applied to muscles due no gravity and they decrease rapidly, that’s why astronauts have to keep exercising to maintain their fitness.

Effects of stress

In our modern world people live lifestyle that is full of stress, routine and problems.  These factors alongside poor diet and gastric or liver problems makes life really hard and unenjoyable.  Visits to doctor become more and more frequent and usually antidepressant drugs filled with toxic chemicals are issued when they are completely unnecessary to the patient and covers the results (not the root cause) for short-term; damage bodily functions even more (sometimes irreversibly); contribute to pharmaceutical business and get rid of the patient for some time, because giving and advice or even creating diet plan and explaining why the patient has a disease, illness or is experiencing stress and even feels depressed – takes too much time and is unprofitable.

Rather than drinking pills, exercise can be used and implemented even in very busy schedule (15 minutes of your morning).  During and after exercise, brain releases serotonin – which is a hormone that effects mood positively and can combat depression, stress or anxiety; make you feel better, more confident and increases sleep quality if you have problems with it.

Effects of alcohol and nicotine

These drug substances are extremely dangerous, addictive and cause irreversible damage to body, but are still socially acceptable and government does not show enough initiative to decrease rate of smokers and alcohol consumers (especially for individuals that are under 18 years of old) as this is also quite profitable.

People usually notice only short-term side effects of alcohol such as nausea, headache and hangover.  But there is also invisible long-term effects that they are unaware of.  Major organs such as liver, kidneys, heart and bones suffers long-term effects if alcohol is consumed regularly.  But the main organ that suffers is the brain as alcohol slows it down and alters brain’s chemistry which can result in depression or anxiety and can also cause memory loss as the brain damage is irreversible.

The main recommendation for people is to consume it responsibly and sensibly if you have to actually consume it, but prevent it by any means possible and if you have addiction problem – seek help immediately.  (Drink-line 0300 123 1110).