When we speak about creating good health or reversing disease, one of the most important factors that matter is our habits. Our health is a by-product of our habits and lifestyle. We do not have to do any diet, instead just improve our habits and lifestyle. On World Health Day, here are seven habits that can be easily implemented in our lives to maintain overall well-being.
1. Eating seasonal fruits: Consuming seasonal fruits is one of the most powerful habits when it comes to good health. Fruits contain fibre, which is the key to good health and weight loss. Always focus on eating fruits on an empty stomach. Whatever seasonal fruits you might like, a habit of having two-three fruits in a day will help you in the long term.
2. A bowl of salad a day: Salads before meals help satisfy hunger and prevent overeating. Salads also guarantee you are getting your veggies, which is the key to good health and good quality fibre. Eating salads before meals also makes our body alkaline.
3. Right time for eating meals: While eating the right food is important, eating on time is equally important. One simple lifestyle change that everyone can make is early dinner. Early dinner has various health benefits and one of them is a better digestive system. Having a late dinner is detrimental to digestion. We should try and finish our dinner by 7 pm or 7.30 pm.
4. 12-hour intermittent fasting: Our body has an innate ability to heal itself. At times all we need to do is allow our gut and digestive system to rest and heal. One of the easy ways is to practice a minimum of 12 hours of intermittent fasting. Try to finish your dinner by 8 pm and after that eat nothing for 12 hours.
5. Avoiding processed foods: One of the primary reasons why we have seen a rise in an epidemic of lifestyle diseases in the last three decades is a sharp increase in the consumption of processed and packet foods like chips, biscuits, chocolates, aerated drinks, and more. If you cannot reduce the consumption of such food to zero, at least ensure that it is significantly minimised. Do not have them daily.
6. Sleeping on time: Good sleep is vital to good health. The hormone leptin plays an important role in our hunger pangs. It tells you to stop eating and when you are sleep deprived, you have less leptin. Hence, focus on getting enough sleep and going to bed on time. Ensure that all the devices (TV, mobile phones, laptops, etc) are restricted to one hour before sleep.
7. Living with gratitude in the present: Like poor sleep, another major reason for an increase in lifestyle diseases is stress. As human beings, we have 70-80 thousand thoughts daily. And each thought has an emotion. We have just two choices: Either live with stress, fear, anxiety or with love, joy, happiness and gratitude. When we are under continued stress, our body releases more proteins, which leads to a lot of health problems.
(The writer is a disease reversal expert based in India. He is the Founder and CEO of Reverse Factor. To know more, call 8100550660 or visit www.reversefactor.in)
