People often talk about the idea of being healthy. But what does that actually mean? According to the World Health Organization, “a healthy lifestyle is a way of living that lowers the risk of being seriously ill or dying early.” Well okay, that’s all good, but how do I do that? Where do I begin? Admittedly, there is a multitude of things that you can do to improve your physical and mental health. So much so, that it can seem overwhelming at times and possibly discourage you from even bothering.
To make healthy living less daunting, I like to promote the idea of the four ‘pillars’ of health – sleep, exercise, nutrition and mental health. The basic idea is that each of these individual pillars have the power to disrupt most, if not all, of the systems in the human body. Thus, it is crucial that any health-conscious person should aspire to have a lifestyle which adapts the four pillars to their unique body and mind.
1. Sleep
Human beings spend about a third of their lives asleep. From an evolutionary standpoint, it should be obvious that sleep plays an instrumental role in our overall health. Unfortunately, for ages it has not been so obvious. It is only now with recently breakthroughs in sleep science, that there is a grave need for a global shift in how we treat our sleep. If you’re interested in learning all that there currently is to know about sleep, I highly recommend reading “Why We Sleep” by Matthew Walker. If that’s too much for you, check out his TED talk instead:
Or perhaps you want an even shorter video…
If a five minute video is also too much for you and you just want to finish reading this post, just know that experts recommend that adults get 7-9 hours of sleep every night. Failing to do so, will be detrimental to your health.
2. Exercise
In this sedentary world in which we now live, the importance of regular exercise cannot be overstated as it offers a long list of attractive short and long-term health benefits. According to Harvard Health Publishing, exercising regularly is the single most important thing you can do for your health. It is recommended that adults get at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise like brisk walking or 75 minutes of high intensity exercise like running every week. As an example, for a young adult, this can be simply implemented as a short 15 minute run every weekday.
Additionally, some form of strength training is required. This is necessary for combatting muscle atrophy ( reduction in muscle size) caused by aging, and far too commonly nowadays, inactivity. It is recommended that adults engage in some from of strength training at least two days a week, targeting the major muscle groups of the body. If you’re a gym goer, you can use everything from exercise machines to dumbbells to resistance bands. If you hate the gym perhaps you can take up strength-based sports like bouldering or rowing. Alternatively, you can engage in bodyweight strength training, also known as calisthenics, which is my personal favourite.
3. Nutrition
Perhaps the most obvious and most talked about, it should come as no surprise that nutrition plays a vital role in one’s overall health. After all, you are what you eat… right? But what should you eat? Which diet is best? Vegan? Mediterranean? Paleo? Vegetarian? Carnivore?!? The short answer is that it depends on you and your body!
Nutrition is probably one of the most confusing fields you will ever try to make sense of. Exacerbated by the internet and large Multi-National Companies, there is no shortage of misinformation and false claims. In addition, people often speak of nutrition and dieting with reference to weight loss almost exclusively. But I believe this is wrong. I hope to shift this conversation to one which revolves around health more generally.
4. Mental Health
Mental Health has been getting much needed global attention in recent years, in particular surrounding the severity and prevalence of depression, anxiety and other mental disorders. However, there is still work to be done in promoting good mental health more generally, not just for those who have a mental illness. But what does it mean to be mentally healthy? How can you cultivate inner peace and happiness? What is self-love? How do you deal with stress? How important is your social wellbeing?
In our busy modern lives, there is no shortage of stress: work stress, travel stress, relationship/social stress, school/university stress, stress from social media, and at the time of writing this post, Coronavirus stress! We need coping mechanisms and stress reduction techniques to combat these and other stress contributors to prevent them from taking over our lives.
Lastly, human beings are social animals, and having social engagement and a sense of connectedness with others is all part of being mentally healthy. According to longevity researcher, Susan Pinker, social integration and close relationships are the top predictors of how long a person will live. This perhaps justifies why women on average, tend to live longer than men.
Please note, this post only gives an introduction to the four pillars. They will be discussed in greater detail in future blog posts.
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